Miss Eden saw the blouse at the same moment, and she frowned angrily.
“There’s that old spy, Pierre Vazon,” cried she. “Nothing that happens here escapes the eyes of him or his daughter. They’re a pair of ignorant, cunning peasants of the lowest type, and I hate them both.”
“Is that his daughter who opened the door of my uncle’s house to us?”
“Yes. She rules everything indoors and her father everything out.”
“The man has a horrible face, and I don’t like the woman’s much better,” said Bayre. “Does my uncle like these people?”
Miss Eden hesitated.
“I sometimes think,” said she, “that—that he’s afraid of them.”
“Afraid! Why should he be?”
“I—don’t—know.” Before Bayre could ask another question the voices of his two friends, still shouting to him, were heard again from above; and the girl, whose manner had changed since the interruption, gave a glance up towards the spot where the peasant was watching, and leapt down towards the shore, away from her companion. “Your friends are calling you, Mr Bayre. Good-bye,” she said, as, with a little inclination of the head, she disappeared in the direction of one of the caverns with which the cliffs were honeycombed.