She smiled, looking at him curiously, and, aware that they were the object of every gaze, Chris walked on by her trying to be perfectly cool and collected; but, as he replied to his companions remarks, feeling more awkward than he had ever felt in his life, and growing moment by moment more absent as in spite of his efforts he wondered what Claude would think, and whether he could overtake her afterwards and explain.
“I am French, and we speak quite plain, what we do tink,” she said laughingly; “here you have been vairay good to me, but you want to go to ze ladies we encounter; is it not so?—Ah!”
The laughing look changed to one full of vindictive anger, as she muttered that quick, sharp cry, and increased the pace almost to a run.
Chris stared after his companion, seeming to ask himself whether she was a mad woman, but almost at the same moment he caught sight of Glyddyr and a showily—dressed stranger, just at the end of the little half-moon shaped granite pier which sheltered the few fishing luggers, brigs and schooners, and formed the only harbour for many miles along the coast.
They were sixty or eighty yards away, and as he saw Chris’s late companion running towards them, Glyddyr stepped down from the harbour wall, and, with less activity, his companion followed, that being a spot where some rough granite steps led down to the water, and where boats coming and going from the yachts were moored.
Chris stood still for a moment or two, and then, carried away by an intense desire to see the end of the little adventure, he walked slowly down towards the pier, gradually coming in sight of Glyddyr and his companion, as the little gig into which they had descended was pulled steadily out towards the yacht.
There were plenty of loungers close up by the houses beneath the cliff, and sailors seated about the decks of the vessels, but the pier was occupied only by the handsomely-dressed woman, who increased her pace to a run, and only paused at the end, where she stood gesticulating angrily, beating one well-gloved hand in the other as she called upon the occupants of the boat to stop.
The stranger looked back at her and raised his hat, but Glyddyr sat immovable in the stern, looking straight out to sea, while the sailors bent to their oars, and made the water foam.
Chris stopped short some thirty yards from the end.
“It is no business of mine,” he thought. “Is this one of Mr Glyddyr’s friends?”