“And now there are no longer any secrets between us—you and I belong to one another, don’t we?”
As Aurea, with a slight but significant gesture, assented, he drew her close to him, she yielded, and he stooped and kissed her.
Someone in the villa above was playing Tschaikowsky’s “Chant sans paroles,” and its tender and exquisite harmonies seemed an appropriate accompaniment to the scene upon the shore.
It was ten o’clock, and Mrs. Morven, who was knitting and counting, frowning and thinking, suddenly overheard a long-legged lassie, with a tawny mane, say to her mother, in a tone of repressed excitement—
“Mother—only think! You know the pretty girl—the one we all admire—I saw her on the beach just now, a good bit away, and she was crying I’m sure—and the young gentleman who came at dinner time kissed her!”
Mrs. Morven rolled up her stocking, arose with deliberate dignity, and sailed forth into the hall, where she found her husband and Sir Richard talking to one another, with great animation, on the subject of rubber shares.
“Where,” she inquired, with a dramatic gesture, “is Aurea? and,” casting a keen glance at Sir Richard, “where is Mr. Wynyard?”
The General could put two and two together as well as most men. Yes, it would do—nice young fellow—old family—baronetcy—and lots of money; and, nodding at his companion with undisguised significance, he said, as he rose—
“I say, Sir Richard, I suppose you and I will have to make a search-party and bring our young people home!” (Our young people!)