"Well, well! We must not keep you from your déjeuner!" she cried, shaking off the queer, disturbing sensation. "I have to thank you for—shall I say a very interesting experience? I am too honest to say an agreeable one!"
She shook hands with Commander Dupré and Lieutenant Paritot, the officers who had accompanied her on what had been, now that she looked back on it, perhaps a more perilous adventure than she had realized.
"You're coming with me, Claire?" She looked at her sister—it was a tender, anxious, loving look; Madeleine Baudoin had been the eldest, and Claire de Wissant the youngest, of a Breton admiral's family of three daughters and four sons; they two were devoted to one another.
Claire shook her head. "I came to tell you that I can't lunch with you to-day," she said slowly. "I promised I would be back by half-past twelve."
"Then we shall not meet till to-morrow?"
Claire repeated mechanically, "No, not till to-morrow, dear Madeleine."
"May I row you home, madame?" Lieutenant Paritot asked Madeleine eagerly.
"Certainly, mon ami."
And so, a very few minutes later, Claire de Wissant and Commander Dupré were left alone together—alone, that is, save for fifty inquisitive, if kindly, pairs of eyes which saw them from every part of the bay.
At last she held out her hand. "Good-bye, then, till to-morrow," she said, her voice so low as to be almost inaudible.