“Yes, I suppose you would know,” she whispered while he gave a stroke or two and again glanced over his shoulder. She murmured the words:
“Bitterness, resentment,” and a moment afterward became aware of the keel of the boat running up on the sand. But she didn't move, and d'Alcacer, too, remained seated on the thwart with the blades of his sculls raised as if ready to drop them and back the dinghy out into deep water at the first sign.
Mrs. Travers made no sign, but she asked, abruptly: “Mr. d'Alcacer, do you think I shall ever come back?”
Her tone seemed to him to lack sincerity. But who could tell what this abruptness covered—sincere fear or mere vanity? He asked himself whether she was playing a part for his benefit, or only for herself.
“I don't think you quite understand the situation, Mrs. Travers. I don't think you have a clear idea, either of his simplicity or of his visionary's pride.”
She thought, contemptuously, that there were other things which d'Alcacer didn't know and surrendered to a sudden temptation to enlighten him a little.
“You forget his capacity for passion and that his simplicity doesn't know its own strength.”
There was no mistaking the sincerity of that murmur. “She has felt it,” d'Alcacer said to himself with absolute certitude. He wondered when, where, how, on what occasion? Mrs. Travers stood up in the stern sheets suddenly and d'Alcacer leaped on the sand to help her out of the boat.
“Hadn't I better hang about here to take you back again?” he suggested, as he let go her hand.
“You mustn't!” she exclaimed, anxiously. “You must return to the yacht. There will be plenty of light in another hour. I will come to this spot and wave my handkerchief when I want to be taken off.”