"If we really intend to escape, why stand on the order of our going?"
"I'm not saying a word. You rather took my breath away at first, you know."
"You should allow for the kinks in the artistic temperament, Lorry. Enthusiasm is too often the herald of despair."
"What sort of job do you really recommend me to take up, Socrates?"
Ingersoll smiled. "I am not in the habit of dealing my friends such shrewd blows," he said. "I was talking of myself—and Yvonne. Make no mistake about her. She has a sane mind in a sound body; but the artist's nature will triumph some day, and she will surprise all of us. By the way—nothing of this project to her till I have explained it. We shall see you at Mère Pitou's, of course?"
"I've promised to shake a leg with Madame herself in a gavotte. You don't suppose that Carmac's death will interfere with the feast?"
"Why should it?" said Ingersoll coldly. "The man is an utter stranger."
Tollemache did not strive to interpret his friend's mood. In so far as it mystified him, and he gave it any thought, he assumed that the tremendous physical exertion and nervous strain of those few minutes when life or death was uncertain as the spin of a coin had affected an ordinarily even-minded disposition.
Peridot interrupted their talk by asking Tollemache to lower the sail. Coming in with wind and tide, the Hirondelle had scudded across the bar without effort. Hardly a whiff of spray had touched her deck, and pursuing waves lagged defeated in her wake.