He glanced through the window and across the moonlit bay which stretched beyond the lawns.
“The Kestrel? Little white yacht with copper funnels, lying in the bay? Is that the one? I saw her as I drove up here this evening.”
“Yes, that’s the Kestrel. You liked her looks?”
“Very pretty. Graceful lines, she has. My own yacht’s rather larger; but she’s not so neat, not so neat. I wanted lots of room on board.”
“The very thing I didn’t want on the Kestrel. I use her as a kind of retreat, Mr. Wraxall, the place for a rest-cure. I’ve never had a guest on board; there isn’t even a spare cabin. Sometimes I want to get clean away from everybody; and that was the best way I could think of for managing it. Callers don’t drop in when one’s fifty miles from port.”
The American looked at her with interest kindling in his eyes.
“You feel that way, too? That’s interesting. That’s very interesting. I take it you’re not a philanthropist, then?”
Mrs. Brent shifted her position slightly and looked up at her neighbour’s clean-shaven face. It was of the long rather than the square American type, the face of a man with a certain imagination.
“If you mean contributing to charitable funds and that sort of thing, I’m certainly not philanthropic,” she answered. “I don’t think I’ve spent a penny in that way during the last ten years. People come bothering me with tales of sad cases; at least they used to do that. But once you get the name of being kind-hearted, you’re simply pestered to death by demands, mostly from frauds. I’ve shed that reputation long ago. I don’t say I don’t give something here and there. Everybody does. But unless I see a thing with my own eyes I refuse to part with a farthing. My eyesight is still fairly good for my age; and I’m quite able to see a thing for myself without needing some fussy creature to point it out to me.”
She broke off suddenly and showed her fine teeth in a faint smile.