Lois looked across, and saw the fairylike summer-house.
“It was an odd fancy to build it so that you could not reach it without crossing the water,” Blanche went on. “I am an excellent oar, and I should like to cross this afternoon, while we leave Lady Quaintree to her siesta.”
The girls returned to breakfast in the gayest of spirits. At that hour Paul Desfrayne was being whirled down from London.
In the afternoon, Gilardoni, who had attended his new master, remarked how pale and weary he looked.
Since the evening Gilardoni had entered Captain Desfrayne’s service, and that very brief dialogue concerning Lucia Guiscardini had passed, the name of the famous Italian singer had never been mentioned by either. Neither knew that the life of the other had been blighted by this lovely snake in woman’s form.
Paul Desfrayne seemed too languid to make any effort to rouse himself this day.
Gilardoni, who appeared to have already formed a strong attachment to the kindly man who had held out his hand in the hour of bitter need—Gilardoni watched him with a strange sort of yearning pity and sympathy.
“This is no mere physical fatigue,” the Italian said to himself. “Nor does it look like threatening illness. There is some mental strain.”
He at length approached his master, deferentially, yet with the air of one who intends to be heard.
“I am sure, sir, it would do you a world of good if you were to ride out for an hour or two,” he said.