Tony flushed with pleasure. “I think we should be delighted, shouldn’t we, Maradick? They’re quite used to our not coming back at the hotel.”
“Thank you very much,” said Maradick. “It’s certainly good of you.”
He noticed that what Punch had said was true; the ears were pointed and the lips sharp and thin.
The dusk had swept down on them. The lights of the town rose in glittering lines one above the other in front of them; it was early dusk for an August evening, but the dark came quickly at Treliss.
The sea was a trembling shadow lit now and again with the white gleam of a crested wave. On the horizon there still lingered the last pale rose of the setting sun and across the sky trembling bars of faint gold were swiftly vanishing before the oncoming stars.
Morelli talked delightfully. He had been everywhere, it appeared, and spoke intimately of little obscure places in Germany and Italy that Tony had discovered in earlier years. Maradick was silent; they seemed to have forgotten him.
They entered the town and passed through the market-place. Maradick looked for a moment at the old tower, standing out black and desolate and very lonely.
In the hotel the dusk would be creeping into the little room of the minstrels. There would be no lights there, only the dust and the old chairs and the green table; from the open window you would see the last light of the setting sun, and there would be a scent of flowers, roses and pinks, from the garden below.
They had stopped outside the old dark house with the curious carving. Morelli felt for the key.
“I don’t know what my daughter will have prepared,” he said apologetically, “I gave her no warning.”