“No. I don’t like her.”
But to judge from the way in which he looked at the boat which presently came gliding along under the pier, with two boatmen managing the sails and the pretty girl herself holding the tiller, Bayre’s dislike of her was at least as absorbing an emotion as the frank adoration of his two friends.
CHAPTER IV.
AND SOMEBODY’S AVERSION
There were “ructions” when Southerley got back to the pier, having failed to catch up the boat containing the old man, and having failed also to get a sight of the boat in which the pretty girl had set sail in her turn.
Southerley was inclined to think the conduct of his two friends unneighbourly in the extreme. He felt that it was their business to have detained the lady until his return, though he could not explain how they should have set about it. He felt that he had been shamefully tricked, and he did not get over his mortification and resentment until chance threw in their way, on the following morning, a person able and willing to communicate to them those details concerning old Mr Bayre of Creux which Aurélie had been prevented from imparting to them.
It was a tradesman’s wife in the town, from whom they had bought some small nick-nacks as souvenirs of their holiday, who told them the strange story. Mr Bayre, she said, had lived for many years a bachelor on his little island, with only his starched and penurious old housekeeper, his cousin, Mees Ford, as companion. The château Madame described as a magnificent and even famous mansion, more like a museum than an ordinary house, by reason of the splendid collection of pictures, tapestries, statues and curiosities of all kinds, of which old Mr Bayre was a well-known collector.
Even this was new to Bartlett Bayre the younger, whose knowledge of his uncle’s habits was of the slightest, and whose acquaintance with him had ceased very many years before.
The good woman went on to tell how, on one of the expeditions which old Mr Bayre periodically made in search of more treasures, he had found an unexpected one in the shape of a beautiful young wife, whom he had brought back to Creux and shut up in the dreary château and the still drearier society of himself and Mees Ford.
“Poor thing!” cried Madame, raising her eyes and her hands with a shrug of sympathy, “no wonder that she was dull! This beautiful young creature buried like that in what was little better than a magnificent tomb!”
“And how long ago was this?” asked Bayre.