"Well, Myrna," her father called, with a smile, "I must say your plunge in the dark looks propitious so far."
"No, no! Not a plunge in the dark!" protested Father Anton quickly, his eyes full of expectant pleasure on Myrna. "That is not fair, Monsieur Bliss! It was on my recommendation, was it not, mademoiselle? And now—eh?—what does mademoiselle think of it?"
It was like the imaginative conception of some painter. The cottage, green with climbing vines, spotlessly white where the vines were sparse, nestled in the trees—in front, as far as the eye could reach, the glorious, deep, unfathomable blue of the Mediterranean; nearer, the splash of surf, like myriad fountains, on the headland's rugged point; while a tiny fringe of beach, just peeping from under the edge of the cliff at the far side of the cottage, glistened as though full of diamonds in the sunlight.
"Father Anton—you are a dear!" Myrna cried impetuously.
Her eyes roved delightedly here and there. There was a little trellis with flowers over the back door—that little outhouse would do splendidly as a garage. And then the front door opened, and her eyes fixed on a girl's figure on the threshold—and somehow the figure was familiar.
"Who is that, Father Anton?" she demanded.
"But it is Marie-Louise—who else?" smiled the priest. "I will call her."
"No," said Myrna; "we will go in."
Of course! How absurd! She recognised the girl now. It was the girl who had passed them on the bridge—Myrna's sunbonnet swung a little abstractedly again—with Jean Laparde.
Father Anton bustled forward.