“Well,” he remarked rather brusquely, “now I’ve found you, I fancy we’d better go back the way we came. I’m longing to see how Linda feels. I want to take her down to the sea this afternoon. Shall we do that? Or perhaps you can’t both leave Miss Doorm at the same time?”
He stared at the stranger as if bidding him clear off. But the admirer of shrew-mice had recovered his equanimity. “I know Mr. Stork well,” he remarked to Sorio. “He and I are quite old friends. I was just asking this lady if she had ever been in the fens before, but I gather this is her first visit.”
Adrian had by this time begun to look so morose that Nance broke in hurriedly.
“We must introduce ourselves,” she said. “My name is Miss Herrick. This is Mr. Adrian Sorio.” She paused and waited. A long shrill cry followed by a most melancholy wail which gradually died away in the distance, came to them over the marshes.
“A curlew,” remarked the intruder. “Beautiful and curious—and with very interesting mating habits. They are rare, too.”
“Come along, Nance,” Sorio burst out. But the girl turned to her new acquaintance and extended her hand.
“You haven’t told us your name yet,” she said. “I hope we shall meet again.”
The stranger gave her a look which, for caressing softness, could only be compared to a virtuoso’s finger laid upon an incomparable piece of Egyptian pottery.
“Certainly we shall meet,” he murmured. “Of course, most certainly. I know every one here. My name is Raughty—Doctor Fingal Raughty. I was with old Doorm when he died. A noble head, though rather malformed behind the ears. He had a peculiar smell too—not unpleasant—rather musky in fact. They called him Badger in the village. He could drink more gin at a sitting than any man I have ever seen. He resembled the portraits of Descartes. Good-bye, Miss—Nance!”
As soon as the lovers were alone Sorio’s rage broke forth.