Basil Stafford sat down in the shelter.
"And perhaps I am too," he said a little impatiently, "even if it's not what people think."
There was open hostility in Gheena's eyes when she replied that perhaps he was.
She climbed the cliff lightly, slow Darby left behind then jumped back again and slipped, Stafford springing up to help her, both young and strong and whole-limbed. Darby's sticks went slowly and heavily as he toiled up.
"Just here," he said, "we thought of the scratch pack. I have not sent them back yet, they amuse me; but they must go next week, after one more hunt."
"It will be so awful when one can't see you hunting hounds." Little Psyche's eyes were full of the admiration which Darby never saw in anyone else's.
"Which you think I do well," he said, laughing.
Psyche replied that he did everything well, and Gheena came up the cliffs again, kindness in her eyes, friendship; but as he limped on, Darby had seen her look at Basil Stafford. The lines of pain deepened in Darby's face; then he laughed again. He was no worse off than he had been six months before, and he had helped Gheena on. Now that she was engaged, with the prospect of taking over her inheritance when she chose, Dearest George was perpetually apologetic and almost wistfully anxious to please. He had referred to the engagement to his wife as being in the nature of a trench mortar—something hurled at him when he slept.
"Look here, Miss Freyne," Stafford stopped Gheena—"I want you not to wait on the cliffs at night, or go out in your boat, but especially at night. The submarines are blockading and they've been seen near here."
Gheena said cheerfully that they were not likely to waste a torpedo upon her.