"You couldn't find it? Mr. Halmar, don't speak loud; don't attract their attention by looking surprised! Was it--the devil, I mean--fearfully ugly?"
"The best I ever made."
"Had it white eyes with a shot stuck in them?"
"Lady Maud! did you find it?"
"Not I, but the professor did. It's a footstep of a discredited belief, and he is going to lecture on it to the British Association. Isn't it perfectly lovely? How we shall all laugh!"
"But you will tell him, of course?"
"Tell him! Why should I? These things are one of my chief joys in life."
Rick Halmar winced. "But don't you see, Lady Maud, it's my fault more or less? I oughtn't to go carving devils and leaving them about. It isn't fair."
She raised her eyebrows. "When you are older, Mr. Halmar, you won't be so eager to accept responsibility. By the way, does yours extend to another devil of the same sort which was found on Grâda Sands?"
He let his head drop into his hands in comic despair. "How one's sins do find one out! It must be the one Aunt Will flung into the Minch. Everything comes round sooner or later to the sands. Has the professor got it too?"