It’s a good joke that keeps out the rain, stays
the wind, and makes the fire burn brightly.
Down on the shore of the loch Diana waited, buffeted by the wind, drenched by the rain. Her hair loosened by the wind blew into her eyes. She pushed it back impatiently: she was waiting for the storm to clear. So soon as the clouds broke, and she saw light on the horizon, and the waters were stilled, she would send the launch for Uncle Marcus. That he must by this time be suffering from congestion of the lungs, she was gloomily certain. There was now no question as to which of the men she loved; she loved them all, in the sense, at least, that there was not one of them she wouldn’t marry to save him from drowning, or from pneumonia. Not one! She had only meant to be funny and she had not been funny. A poor joke was a crime in itself—nothing excused it. If it had been a good joke they would all have forgiven her, but what with the rain and the wind and the island—horrible at all times—she had sinned beyond forgiveness. Oh, to be with Aunt Elsie—the peace of it—the perfect peace! The memory of the sun-steeped garden, with the booming of bees—so different from the booming of waves—of the scent of the roses, was more than she could bear—and the deliciousness of Shan’t became an aching memory.
Pillar was watching, too, clad in oilskins and wearing a sou’wester. He made the agony still more acute, by carrying a rope. As Napoleon is pictured standing wrapt in melancholy, so stood Pillar—awaiting the worst.
Suddenly he stiffened and came towards her, as though, she thought, he were in London, about to announce a visitor. “Mr. St. Jermyn, miss,” he said. She had been right, he was a butler again announcing a visitor, and never was visitor so welcome as this one.
“You!” she cried, as St. Jermyn came towards her across the sandy bay and took her hands in his.
“I am abjectly sorry,” she said, and withdrew them gently, explaining they were wet. Then she asked him if he had forgiven her, which was a dangerous question to ask.
“Yes ... now,” he said, with a still more dangerous emphasis.
“Why now?” she asked—a foolish question to ask. She might have guessed why.
“Don’t spoil it,” he said gently.