Then a skirl of laughter, the piercingness of which, near to, could only be guessed at.
Then, booming fragments of a voice that rose above others just as an occasional column of foam spouted higher than those other Biscay rollers on the reef. Then an uninterrupted booming.... Apparently a speech was in progress.
An involuntary and smiling silence seemed to fall upon the luncheon parties in the salle above, almost as if they would have felt it impolite to talk through what was going on below. Truly, Miss Walsh was making the hotel one that day—the hotel to which she had only come because of that hat-pin stuck in a guide-book and pricking at random a name on a page!
Then suddenly, the door of the salle à manger opened. The blue-and-red apparition of Sergeant Tronchet stood to attention just inside it: darkly flushed, beaming, silent.
(It may here be said that none of the visitors ever had known this swarthy well-set-up French soldier anything but silent. All that most of them had ever heard of his voice had been the murmured "Madame ... Mademoiselle ... Messieurs ..." that accompanied his heel-clicking bows. Only Miss Walsh had ever had any conversation with him. But had not this been to some purpose?)
"Oh, he's come to fetch me," she exclaimed now in a voice that failed. "Good-bye, Olwen dear," she added, as if she never expected to come back alive. "I shall see you and Mrs. Cartwright and the Professor at tea-time——you are all coming to my tea, aren't you?" she finished appealingly.
Then she disappeared, with her peacock-proud fiancé.
"The day has only just begun, my dear child!" declared Mrs. Cartwright to Olwen, rising. "Come to my room and take a rest before we come on in the next act. Run up, will you? I'll follow."
Olwen ran up; glad of a breathing space.