"This is not a woman!" declared Philip with heat and eagerness, "at least not the sort of woman I have ever known! This is a forest-empress, sea-goddess, or sun-angel! I don't know what she is, upon my life!"
Lorimer regarded him with an air of reproachful offense.
"Don't go on—please don't!" he implored. "I can't stand it—I really can't! Incipient verse-mania is too much for me. Forest-empress, sea-goddess, sun-angel—by Jove! what next? You are evidently in a very bad way. If I remember rightly, you had a flask of that old green Chartreuse with you. Ah! that accounts for it! Nice stuff, but a little too strong."
Errington laughed, and, unabashed by his friend's raillery, proceeded to relate with much vivacity and graphic fervor the occurrences of the morning. Lorimer listened patiently with a forbearing smile on his open, ruddy countenance. When he had heard everything he looked up and inquired calmly—
"This is not a yarn, is it?"
"A yarn!" exclaimed Philip. "Do you think I would invent such a thing?"
"Can't say," returned Lorimer imperturbably. "You are quite capable of it. It's a very creditable crammer, due to Chartreuse. Might have been designed by Victor Hugo; it's in his style. Scene, Norway—midnight. Mysterious maiden steals out of a cave and glides away in a boat over the water; man, the hero, goes into cave, finds a stone coffin, says—'Qu'est-ce que c'est? Dieu! C'est la mort!' Spectacle affreux! Staggers back perspiring; meets mad dwarf with torch; mad dwarf talks a good deal—mad people always do,—then yells and runs away. Man comes out of cave and—and—goes home to astonish his friends; one of them won't be astonished,—that's me!"
"I don't care," said Errington. "It's a true story for all that. Only, I say, don't talk of it before the others; let's keep our own counsel—"
"No poachers allowed on the Sun-Angel Manor!" interrupted Lorimer gravely. Philip went on without heeding him.
"I'll question Valdemar Svensen after breakfast. He knows everybody about here. Come and have a smoke on deck when I give you the sign, and we'll cross-examine him."