“I'll tell you what,” said Ponty, “let's go there. It's only half a day's journey. There we can study the question on the spot.”
“Yes, and look as if we were running after him. No, thank you,” sniffed Lucilla.
“I dare say we should look a little like accusing spirits, if he saw us,” Ponty admitted.
“But let's go in disguise. We can shave our heads, stain our skins, wear elastic-sided boots and pass ourselves off as an Albanian currant merchant and his family travelling to improve our minds in foreign politics.”
“I see Ruth and myself,” Lucilla yawned, “swathed in embroideries and wearing elasticsided boots, and presently we should be arrested as spies, and when our innocent curiosity had been well aired by the press, we should look to Bertram Bertrandoni more like accusing spirits than ever.”
“You women,” growled Pontycroft, extracting a cigarette from his cigarette case, “are so relentlessly cautious! You have no faith in the unexpected! That's why you'll never know the supreme content of throwing your bonnets over the mills, regardless of consequences.”
“The Consequences!” Lucilla retorted, “they're too obvious. We should be left bareheaded, et voilà tout!”
“Ah, well—there you are,” replied Ponty, and touched a match to his cigarette.
Yes, we may believe that the newspapers were read with interest at the Villa Santa Cecilia and that they gave the man there occasion for what his sister called “a prodigious deal of jawing.”
“Well, my poor Ariadne,” he commiserated, “ginger is still hot in the mouth, and Naxos is still a comfortable place of sojourn. Our star has been snatched from us and borne aloft to its high orbit in the heavens; we from our lowly coigne of earth can watch and unselfishly rejoice at its high destiny. Of course, the one thing to regret is that you didn't nail him when you had him. Nail the wild star to its track in the half climbed Zodiac,” he advised, sententious.