“Ah!” The stranger looked at her curiously, smiling with exquisite sweetness. “You have been here before,” he said. “You came in a coach, pulled by six black horses. You know every sort of reed and every kind of moss in all the fens. You know all the shells on the shore and all the seaweed in the sea.”
Nance was less puzzled than might be supposed by this fantastic address, as she had the advantage of interpreting it in the light of the humorous and reassuring smile which accompanied its utterance.
She brought him back to reality by a direct question. “Can you tell me where Mr. Stork lives, please? I’ve a friend staying with him and I want to know which way a person would naturally take coming from there to us. I had rather hoped,” she hesitated a little, “to have met my friend already. But perhaps Mr. Stork is a late riser.”
The stranger, who had been looking very intently at the opposite hedge while she asked her question, suddenly darted towards it. The queer way in which he ran with his arms swinging loosely from his shoulders, and his body bent a little forward, struck Nance as peculiarly fascinating. When he reached the hedge he hovered momentarily in front of it and then pounced at something. “Missed!” he cried in a peevish voice. “Damn the little scoundrel! A shrew-mouse! That’s what it was! A shrew-mouse!”
He came hurrying back as fast as he went, almost as if Nance herself had been some kind of furred or feathered animal that might disappear if it were not held fast.
“I beg your pardon, Madam,” he said, breathlessly, “but you don’t often see those so near the town. Hullo!” This last exclamation was caused by the appearance, not many paces from them, of Adrian Sorio himself who emerged from a gap in the hedge, hatless and excited.
“I was on the tow-path,” he gasped, “and I caught sight of you. I was afraid you’d have started. Baltazar made me go with him to the station.” He paused and stared at Nance’s companion.
The latter looked so extremely uncomfortable that the girl hastened to come to his rescue.
“This gentleman was just going to show me the way,” she said, “to your friend’s house. Look, Adrian! Aren’t these lovely?”
She held out the dandelions towards him, but he disregarded them.