“Una,” said the Comtesse, “the dear captain will take pity on us. He will send one of his men back to the house to fetch a cold chicken and some wine—and all the delightful things we are to eat and drink. Give him a note to the butler, Una, we will go on with Captain Twinely.”
Una, puzzled, but obedient to a quick glance from her aunt, wrote the note. The troopers, leading Captain Twinely’s horse, rode back to Dunseveric House. The Comtesse, still leaning on the captain’s arm, picked up her bundle of bathing clothes.
“Allow me to carry that for you,” said the captain, “allow me to carry all the bundles.”
“Oh, but no. Have we got a cavalier with such trouble and shall we turn him into a beast of burden, a—how do you say it?—a baggage ass? The good Hannah will carry my bundle.’”
The good Hannah became a baggage animal, but she was not an ass. She was, indeed, struggling with suppressed mirth. She was confirmed in her opinion that the Comtesse possessed a subtlety not unlike that of the serpent in Eden.
The Comtesse led the way, chatting to Captain Twinely, saying things more charmingly provocative than any which poor Twinely had ever heard from a woman’s lips. Her eyes flashed on him, drooped before his gaze, sought his again with shy suggestiveness. She even succeeded, when his glance grew very bold, in blushing. They reached the little cove where Maurice’s boat lay.
The Comtesse sat down, and then lolled back on the short grass. Her motions and her attitudes were the most easy and natural possible, yet her pose was charming. There was not a fold of her skirt but fell round her gracefully. From the challenging smile on her lips to the point of the little shoe which peeped out beneath her petticoat, there came an invitation to Captain Twinely—a suggestion that he, too, should sit gracefully on the grass.
“Now, Una,” she said, “go and have your bathe, if you must do anything so foolish. We will wait for you here, the captain will amuse me till you return. Kiss me, child, before you go.”
Una bent over her.
“I’ll keep him,” whispered the Comtesse, “I’ll keep him, even if I have to allow the animal to embrace me. But, dear Una, do not be very long.”