CHAPTER XVIII
ROGER THE MAROONED
No word came from the Manor the next day, only a big bunch of fragrant lilies for Win and some jelly of which Paget alone knew the secret recipe. Early Tuesday morning Max's prophesied storm arrived in earnest and the young people at Rose Villa saw the Granville boat leave her pier amid sheets of driving rain. Her decks looked dreary and deserted, for all the passengers were inside.
"I suppose Mr. Max is on board for he was obliged to go," observed Frances, as the steamer disappeared in low-hanging banks of fog drifting continually nearer shore.
"Yes," agreed Win, who was dressed and about, though still looking ill. "There will be some word when he gets back to Paris. It stormed so yesterday that he probably couldn't go into the cave as he planned."
"Life seems very tame after all the interesting things that happened last week," sighed Frances, gathering her French grammar and other school books. "Rain or no rain, there will be school, and English rain seems somehow wetter than American. You'd better eat that jelly, Win. According to Nurse, it is the elixir of life and warranted to cure every ill known to man."
Win smiled as he watched his sister and Edith down the steps, and waved a listless hand as they turned inquiring faces under bobbing umbrellas at the end of the terrace. He looked enviously after Roger, a tall slim clothespin in black rubber coat and boots, sou'wester pulled firmly over his head, tramping sturdily toward the beach, evidently on some definite errand. Win would have liked mightily to be swinging along with him through the storm, but the fun of facing a tempest was not for Win.
For a few moments he stood idly by the window, wondering whether Connie knew what Max had possibly discovered in his inspection of cave and vaults. Then he turned with a sigh, reminding himself that with the weather what it was, and in this land of few telephones, there was no chance of hearing anything from the Manor.
Gradually the stormy morning passed, somewhat dully for Win, who still felt unfit to study or even to occupy himself with a book, and lay upon the couch while his mother read aloud.
Frances returned from school, ravenously hungry and quite rosy with the rain that had beaten in her face.