The group moved out on to the terrace in front of the house. Freddie Stickney attached himself to Nina Lindale, and they went off together down into the gardens. Eric Dangerfield, looking worried, approached his uncle, and they followed the other two. Morchard and Eileen descended the steps and turned off into one of the side-alleys. Mrs. Brent turned to the remaining two:
“Mr. Morchard’s quite right, I think,” she said. “If there’s any coolness to be had to-night, it will be down at the Pool. Shall we go?”
She looked up at the inky sky with some distrust. Mrs. Caistor Scorton turned back towards the door.
“It looks very like a downpour,” she reflected. “I don’t think I’ll join you. I have to write a note to my bankers and one or two other things, and I may as well do that now.”
“Oh, very well,” said Mrs. Brent, placidly. “Perhaps you’re right. Will you risk it, Mrs. Tuxford?”
They moved off in the track of the two Dangerfields, leaving Mrs. Scorton to return to the house.
“I think we might walk a shade faster,” Mrs. Brent suggested in a moment or two. She seemed anxious about something. “I hate moving about at all on a night like this; but I’d really give a good deal for a breath of fresh air. It’s like an oven up there at the house; but down beside the water it ought to be cooler. Really, if this spell doesn’t break soon I shall simply take French leave and go off in the Kestrel.”
She pointed towards the bay, where one or two of the yacht’s lights flickered upon the water. Mrs. Tuxford nodded understandingly.
“I know how you feel—nerves all ragged. And you’ve got a headache, too. Don’t bother to talk. Let’s walk along quietly and see if the air about the Pool will do you any good.”
By winding paths they came at last to the edge of the belt of trees which encircled the sheet of water. Just before they emerged from the shadows, Mrs. Brent pulled up and glanced round the Pool. On the further bank, some forty yards off, she caught a glimpse of Eileen Cressage’s dress lit up by the moonlight, and a flash of Morchard’s shirt-front as he turned a little.