He waited in vain. She did not take that zigzag track that led to the cliffs above the cave. He heard her jump—it was almost a feat—from the track by which she had ascended, on to a flat rock not a yard from the entrance to the cavern. He shrunk still further back into the darkness, and then there came before the entrance the most entrancing figure of a girl that he had ever seen.
She stood there delightfully out of breath, with the moonlight bringing out every gracious curve in her shape. So he had seen the limelight reveal the graces of a breathless danseuse, when taking her “call.”
“My dear Prince,” said the girl, with many a gasp. “You have treated me very badly. It’s a pull—undeniably a pull—up those rocks, and for the third time I have kept my tryst with you, only to be disappointed.”
She laughed, and putting a shapely foot—she was by no means careful to conceal her stocking above the ankle—upon a stone, she quietly and in a matter-of-fact way, tied the lace of her yachting shoe.
The stooping was not good for her—he felt that, together with a few other matters incidental to her situation. He waited for the long breath he knew she would draw on straightening herself.
It came. He hoped that her other shoe needed tying; but it did not.
He watched her as she stood there with her back to him. She was sending her eyes out to the Western headlands.
“No, my Prince; on the whole I’m not disappointed,” she said. “That picture repays me for my toil by sea and land. What a picture! But what would it be to be here with—with—love!”
That was all she said.
He thought it was quite enough.