"Supposing someone saw you out alone. It's possible. I heard you were off near the point two nights ago."
"I am looking for the base," said Gheena composedly. "I shall find it too."
Here Mr. Stafford made the grievous mistake of telling her hotly that no one wanted her to look for it, and, in fact, that she was not to. The fewer people on the cliff the better, and certain people would be pleased if she did not wander there.
"That I can understand," said Miss Freyne, adding that she would go out when and where she chose, and after this haughty outburst her face clouding and growing sad.
Mrs. De Burgho Keane was at the house to offer congratulations. She did it quite gracefully, suggesting that Darby's injuries would keep Gheena from gadding about quite as much as most young women did, once that she knew they would be happy.
"Poor Lancelot, of course, will never go back to be killed," she added pleasantly. "He was too young for you, Gheena."
Gheena jumped up to kiss Violet Weston, and to remove her to the far end of the room, where they whispered together impolitely. A fresh expedition along the coast was planned, but before it came off Gheena went off alone in her new two-seater, going down the same narrow lane which she had last driven down with Darby, and pulling up only just in time on the plateau.
The beauty and chill of spring lay on the sea; a silver shade touched the brightest cold blue; little speckles of white, steel edged, rimmed the tiny waves. The illusiveness of girlhood was in the mood of the day, fair and yet too bright for warmth. Rock roses crouched in the clefts of the stones: little yellow flowers, and here and there a rare blue gentian brilliant against the green. Fern prongs were pushing up, and the white gulls sailed happily on the water, mocking Crabbit's barks.
And on the water and in it, mischief—lurking demons down below; machines oiled by human relentlessness, dealing swift death gladly to the toilers of the sea.
Amid the sheen and the glitter Gheena almost brought herself to believe that she saw the black rim of a periscope.