Not for long: not for long were they allowed. An eye was upon them—the eye of that beautiful demon.
Ah! fair Judith, thy flirtation has proved a failure! The ruse has recoiled upon thyself!
The golden sunlight once more fell upon the Jumbé Rock, revealing the forms of four individuals—all youthful—all in love, though two only were beloved!
The returning light brought no joy to Judith Jessuron.
It revealed to her that glance of mutual fascination, which, with a quick, sharp cry, she had interrupted.
A bitter embarrassment seemed all at once to have seized upon her proud spirit, and dragged it into the dust.
Skilled in the silent language of the eyes, she had read in those of Herbert Vaughan, as he bent them upon his cousin, an expression that stung her, even to the utterance of a scream!
From that moment the flirtation with Smythje ceased; and the Cockney exquisite was forsaken in the most unceremonious manner left to continue his telescopic observations alone.
The conversation was no longer dos y dos, but at once changed to a trio; and finally restored to its original quartette form—soon, however, to be broken up by an abrupt separation of the parties.
The Jewess was the first to propose departure—the first to make it. She descended from the Jumbé Rock in a less lively mood than that in which she had climbed up to it; inwardly anathematising the eclipse, and the fortune that had guided her to the choice of such an ill-starred observatory.