“Ah, no,” cried Myra, impulsively. “No, Jim Airth! You—glad, and safe, and free—were walking along the top of these cliffs. I, in my senseless folly, lay sleeping on the sand below, while the tide rose around me. You came down into danger to save me, risking your life in so doing. I owe you my life, Jim Airth; you owe me nothing.”
The man beside her turned and looked at her, with his quiet whimsical smile.
“I am not accustomed to have my statements amended,” he said, drily.
It was growing so dark, they could only just discern each other’s faces.
Lady Ingleby laughed. She was so unused to that kind of remark, that, at the moment she could frame no suitable reply.
Presently:—“I suppose I really owe my life to my scarlet parasol,” she said. “Had it not attracted your attention, you would not have seen me.”
“Should I not?” questioned Jim Airth, his eyes on the white loveliness of her face. “Since I saw you first, on the afternoon of your arrival, have you ever once come within my range of vision without my seeing you, and taking in every detail?”
“On the afternoon of my arrival?” questioned Lady Ingleby, astonished.
“Yes,” replied Jim Airth, deliberately. “Seven o’clock, on the first of June. I stood at the smoking-room window, at a loose end of all things; sick of myself, dissatisfied with my manuscript, tired of fried fish—don’t laugh; small things, as well as great, go to make up the sum of a man’s depression. Then the gate swung back, and YOU—in golden capitals—the sunlight in your eyes, came up the garden path. I judged you to be a woman grown, in years perhaps not far short of my own age; I guessed you a woman of the world, with a position to fill, and a knowledge of men and things. Yet you looked just a lovely child, stepping into fairy-land; the joyful surprise of unexpected holiday danced in your radiant eyes. Since then, the beautiful side of life has always been you—YOU, in golden capitals.”
Jim Airth paused, and sat silent.