Juliet and Columbus sat in a sheltered nook on the shore and gazed thoughtfully out to sea. It was a warm morning after a night of tempest, and the beach was strewn with seaweed after an unusually high tide.
Columbus sat with a puckered brow. In his heart he wanted to be pottering about among these ocean treasures which had a peculiar fascination for his doggy soul. But a greater call was upon him, keeping him where he was. Though she had not uttered one word to detain him, he had a strong conviction that his mistress wanted him, and so, stolidly, he remained beside her, his sharp little eyes flashing to and fro, sometimes watching the great waves riding in, sometimes following the curving flight of a sea-gull, sometimes fixed in immensely dignified contemplation upon the quivering tip of his nose. His nostrils worked perpetually. The air was teeming with interesting scents; but not one of them could lure him from his mistress's side while he sensed her need of him. His body might be fat and bulging, but his spirit was a thing of keen perceptions and ardent, burning devotion, capable of denying every impulse save the love that was its mainspring.
Juliet was certainly very thoughtful that day. She also was watching the waves, but the wide brow was slightly drawn and the grey eyes were not so serene as usual. She had the look of one wrestling with a difficult problem. The roar of the sea was all about her, blotting out every other sound, even the calling of the gulls. Her arm encircled Columbus who was pressed solicitously close to her side. They had been sitting so, almost without moving, for over half-an-hour.
Suddenly Columbus turned his head sharply, and a growl swelled through him. Juliet looked round, and in a moment she had started to her feet. A man's figure, lithe and spare, with something of a monkey's agility of movement, was coming to her over the stones. They met in a shelving hollow of shingle that had been washed by the sea.
"Oh, Charles!" she said impulsively. "It is good of you to come!"
He glanced around him as he clasped her hand, his ugly face brimming with mischief. "It is rather—considering the risk I run. I trust your irascible husband is well out of the way?"
She laughed, though not very heartily. "Yes, he has gone to town. I didn't want him to. I wish I had stopped him."
He looked at her shrewdly. "You've got an attack of nerves," he observed.
She still sought to smile—though the attempt was a poor one. "To be quite honest—I am rather frightened."
"Frightened!" He pushed a sudden arm around her, looking comical and tender in the same moment. "And so you sent for me! Then it's Ho for the Night Moth, and when shall we start?"