"Ah! one can see quite plainly from one house to the other, is it not so?"
"Quite," Dan replied.
"Thank you, monsieur. I trust there will be no need for assistance. But it makes one glad to know where are neighbours, especially—" she added, "while poor Mrs. Meath is ill."
As she spoke she turned to the door with the air of dismissing him, but on second thoughts she faced him again. "I wonder, Mr. Frost, will you do me a favour?"
"I shall be delighted," Dan exclaimed.
"My luggage arrived last night," said Madame de La Fontaine, "upon the ship that is at anchor in the bay. They are to bring my boxes ashore. But before that I desire to give directions to the captain at the beach, and I cannot well do so by my servant. Will you be kind enough to walk with me and show me the way?"
Dan forgot about Nancy in his eagerness to assure this unusually attractive lady that he was at her disposal. She disappeared within, and he heard her give some quick, sharp directions in French to a maid. Then in a moment she reappeared on the little porch, bonneted and wrapped for a walk in the cold.
As they set out across the Dunes, she kept up a rapid fire of questions that might have seemed inquisitive to one more accustomed to the world than Dan. He found himself in the course of that quarter of an hour talking quite freely with the charming stranger.
"No, I did not make the journey from France in the Southern Cross," she replied to one of his interrogations, "that would have been uncomfortable, I fear. But she brings over my boxes. She is arrived somewhat sooner than I was promised."
"Do you expect to signal her from the beach?"