"Please do not trouble," he said; "I am not going any further. I only want to speak to this gentleman coming along. I beg you will not trouble to move the easel. Artists must not be disturbed, or the inspiration may desert them," he added to Francis Lisle, with a pleasant smile.
"Thank you, thank you," said Lisle, still clutching the easel; but Grey had turned the chair with its front to the sea, and the duke called to Yorke, who had come upon them at this juncture.
"What a pretty place, Yorke!" he said. "Have you had your stroll? Shall we go back?"
Yorke had discreetly kept behind the chair, and out of sight of his cousin's sharp eyes.
"All right," he assented.
"Will you give me a cigar?" said the duke.
Yorke came up to the chair and put his hand in his pocket, and thoughtlessly extended the cigar case.
"Thanks. Good gracious! Why, it is soaking wet! Hallo, Yorke," and the duke screwed his head round. "Why, where have you been? What have you been doing?"
Yorke flushed, and cast an appealing glance at Leslie's downcast face. To be made the center of an astonished and absurdly admiring group, to be made a cheap twopenny-halfpenny hero of, was more than he could stand.
"Oh it's nothing," he growled. "Had an accident—tumbled into the sea."