I have promised to ask you, imperatively, not to remain after Sunday. Until that day we shall be at the Villa de la Mer, a chalet about a mile from here.
Do not try to see me to-night. I agree with Miss Langley that it will be best if we meet to-morrow morning on the beach at eleven o'clock. I shall expect you at the end of the path down from the hotel, where the beck is lost in the shingle.
I can be with you for an hour. If we do not find that we are making a mistake, Miss Langley will be glad to see you at the Villa at half-past two.
S.B.
That is as far ahead as I mean to look. If Susan and he strike a bargain at once, I may have to consider what unbendings I must make, and what little honours I must render to-morrow night, and Sunday, to my noble neighbour, and to my Lady Ruddington of the very near future.
I have kept faith with Gibson. To-morrow morning he will have a discreet letter, telling him that the unknown is coming for a few hours: that he is an honourable man; and that Gibson will best serve himself and everybody else by keeping out of the way.
Noon.
Susan is alternately beaming and weeping like an April day.
Before she carried the note up to the hotel to leave it for Ruddington, she was all bright excitement and chattering importance. We had quite a gay quarter of an hour settling what she should wear on the beach. She is going to meet him in her navy-blue serge which she has hardly worn, with white gloves and quite a Parisian hat which she has taken over from Georgette. It is of soft, fine, blue straw, made cocked-hat-shape, with two downy, snow-white wings.
"What must I do, Miss, when he comes up to me?" she asked.