"We must not forget to look out for passing boats."
The afternoon sun was filling the air with a dusky golden glow. The waves dancing and sparkling below the mouth of the cave flashed emerald and sapphire hues upon its roof, irradiating the place with an ever-changing light.
To Idris the situation was a charming tableau, a living idyll, and one that was rendered all the more pleasant by contrast with their recent perilous position. Mademoiselle Rivière trembled as she reflected on what might have happened but for the chance passing of this stranger. Strange that until this moment it had not occurred to her to ask his name!
"You know my name," she said, "but I have yet to learn yours."
"My name is Breakspear," he replied, withholding his true patronymic; and feeling as he spoke a sense of shame of having to deceive her even in so small a matter; "Idris Breakspear."
"Idris!" she said, with a sudden start, as if the name had touched some chord in her memory. "Idris! It is a somewhat uncommon name."
"We will say, then, that its rarity is a point in its favour," smiled Idris, who had observed her start, and wondered at the cause.
"Have we not met before, Mr. Breakspear?"
"I saw you two days ago in the Ravengar Chantry," he replied. He did not say, as he might truthfully have said, that during these two days he had been thinking of little else but that brief meeting. "Miss Ravengar and I," he continued, "had been listening to your recital on the organ. I must congratulate you on your skill as a musician, Mademoiselle Rivière. May I ask the name of the last chant you played? Was it taken from some oratorio, or was it your own improvisation?"
"The last chant?" repeated Lorelie, with a pensive air. "Let me think? What was it? Did it run like this?"