"Captain Strange would be flattered by your description."
The Duchess laughed contemptuously as they stepped into the street. "I am scarcely responsible for M. Aksakoff's notion of a yacht. Foreigners are so ignorant."
"They are not so clever as Englishmen--or Englishwomen."
"Except in trickery and blackmail, where they surpass them," retorted Leah, her petty rage insisting on having the last word.
Katinka permitted her the gratification, and they walked the whole length of the High Street in grim silence.
At a rude quay jutting from the beach of the lower town they boarded a disreputable boat, rowed by two pirates and steered by a third. The night was starry but moonless, comparatively calm, and noticeably chilly. Leah shivered as the boat made for a vivid green riding-light, which shone, an emerald star, no great distance from the shore. But her shiver might have been an admission of dread. Katinka took it to be so, and smiled in a gratified way as her enemy climbed the side of the steamer, which was a veritable gypsy of the sea, untidy, dirty, and decidedly questionable in honest eyes. Strange did the honours, loud-tongued and raucous.
"Guess it do my eyes good to see your Grace," was his welcome.
"Hold your tongue, and don't use my title," she replied furiously.
Strange's milk of human kindness turned sour on the instant. "I ain't high-falutin' enough, I s'pose. Pity I ain't a dandy skipper of sorts, all hair-oil an' giddy gold tags."
Leah turned her back without deigning a reply, and looked inquiringly at Katinka. The girl, with an enigmatic smile on her wan face, led the way down some greasy stairs, into a stuffy state-room, and opened the narrow door of a side-cabin. Leah entered and heard the lock click behind her. Evidently Mademoiselle Aksakoff did not think it judicious to remain.