He had been sprawling on the stones at the foot of the cliff about a quarter of a mile away. At such a distance it was impossible to make out his features, but, as he stood up, I saw it was not Mr. John Lamb. I saw the figure of a man well drilled, a man accustomed to an outdoor life. The man wore a dark blue lounge suit and a straw boater of unmistakably English lines.
For a moment I thought with disgust that he was one of those provincial English tourists (we have had two or three of them off and on at Sainte Véronique) who find some sort of pleasure in lurking about the beaches furtively watching "the ladies" while they bathe. I wished I hadn't left Susan behind. But, as soon as he saw me sit up, the man began to walk towards me in a perfectly open manner.
I couldn't feel sure that it wasn't Ruddington. It flashed across my brain that he was scheming an interview with me as a flank movement upon Susan. Besides, I remembered that a rather fine-tempered man like Ruddington must perceive the unpleasantness of the position in which Susan's acceptance of him would place Susan's mistress, and, in his unconventional ingenuousness, he was just the sort of man to come forward betimes with boyishly candid explanations, and adjustments, and appeals. As he sped towards me over the blinding chalk-stones, there was something in his stride that recalled the eager, masterful love-making of his present Majesty of Spain.
I got up, relocked the hut door, left the chair outstretched on the shingle, and swung off for home as swiftly as was possible without seeming to run away. I did not choose to grant an audience to Lord Ruddington whenever and wherever it might suit him to claim it.
But his legs were longer than mine and in better training. I had an instinct to run, an instinct to look back, but I mastered them both.
Very soon I could hear the stones crunching or slipping or rolling under his boots. Surely, I told myself angrily, any man who wasn't a bounder or a madman could see that I resented the pursuit. But he came ever quicklier on. And, as I gained the path up the beck, he positively broke into a run.
I turned round.
It was Gibson.
"Gibson!" I cried; "Gibson! Is it you?"
"Yes, Ma'am," he answered firmly, pulling off his hat and standing, six feet away, bare-headed in the sun.