Five hundred feet of sheer cliff about which thousands of gulls flew screaming in and out of the roaring gusts of the gale, and down-shore the intermittent boom of a souffleur overtoning by many cavernous notes the great voices of sky and sea.
The library at Plenhöel is one of the most pleasing places imaginable. Long ago it had been a guard-room, where the officers of the garrison watched the offing from the tunnel-like window-embrasures, and the pikes of halberdiers resounded upon the granite-flagged floor. Some time after the Chouan wars it was transformed into an eminently “living” apartment, paneled in carved oak, book-lined on three sides, and pierced by many tall French windows that open upon a broad balcony of wonderfully wrought stone.
In one of the aforesaid embrasures that tempestuous morning the still, gracile silhouette of Marguerite de Plenhöel was outlined against the background of sea and cloud. She had grown a little since a year, but it seemed evident that she would never be either a tall or an “imposing” woman. But what could one not forgive in so lovely a little creature who, with her square shoulders and slim, round waist, looked wholesome and strong as any sand-poppy; whose delicately oval face was so full of happy life, from the deep-set blue eyes to the tender mouth, the patrician arch of the nose, and the obstinate little chin dented by a tantalizing fossette? The crinkly silkiness of her hair—that crowning beauty of hers—now piled upon her head in rebellious masses, shone even in the fog-dimmed light as she bent forward to gaze fervently through the panes, breathing on and rubbing them again and again to free them from their misted opaqueness.
She had been home for good a couple of weeks only, and greeted the convulsions of nature as a treat especially prepared for her; for now and then she clapped her hands and sketched a merry jig-step or two on the polished floor, evidently in applause of so stirring a scene. So absorbed, indeed, was she in her contemplation, her lovely face flattened now against the glass, that she did not hear a door unclose and shut behind her. She was counting aloud for the seventh fateful wave that all true-born ocean folk hold in so profound a respect.
“One, two, three, four, five, six ...” she called, as if summoning the crowning surge in unconquerable impatience.
“Seven!” said a voice immediately at her side, and she whirled about on one toe to find herself confronted by a very tall man who was smiling amusedly.
“Basil!” she exclaimed. “Cousin Basil! Where did you jump from?”
“From the cliff path, which I don’t recommend as a peaceful choice of promenade just now,” he replied, calmly; but his fine gray eyes, nevertheless, held a suggestion of the pleasing battle he had just fought against the tempest.
“Why didn’t you call me?” she reproached, with an adorable pout. “I would have liked so much to come with you.”
“Little girls, my cousin,” he answered, gravely, “should not be risked on the edge of draughty precipices.”