"Mr. Miller frankly puzzles me," she said.
Aylmer gave a little nod in the darkness.
"Yes," he agreed. "There is a sense of—of estrangement about him. He is good company, a mondain, intelligent, but not—human. One feels that at every turn."
The girl made a gesture towards the shore.
"What can he have to do in that—that ash heap?" she asked. "A man who poses as a flâneur, a dilettante."
"Pottery?" suggested Aylmer. "He collects; I have seen his collections. They are sound and in good taste, without being remarkable."
"That is what I think," she acquiesced. "For the life-work of a man they are petty. It is mysterious; he is mysterious! Why did he not rejoin us this evening at the governor's office as he promised?"
Aylmer smiled.
"The ardors of the chase," he hazarded. "He is probably sitting in the sanctum of some Jew huckster, chaffering for the least worn of a collection of Rabat rugs or old Mequinez steel-work. He will come on board to-morrow to explain and bid us farewell, and we shall hear all about it."
"About what?" asked the girl enigmatically.