“Ah me! Oh dear!”
Her voice scarce disturbed the silence of the yacht: “Good-bye, Duke Maximilian. Our lives go different ways. I do wish you success, happiness, health. Good-bye.”
As he lay, with closed eyes, his fingers found her hand and raised it to his lips.
“Good-bye,” said he. Such was his farewell.
She looked back from the side. He lay silent. She said:
“Courtesy, Maximilian?”
A sea-bird mocked the silence. The cloud athwart the sun was now as large as half the world. The Duchess of Mall said:
The sea-bird screamed and flew away, and Leonora of Mall cried: “I will forgive you all things but your farewell, Maximilian. The very birds are appalled to see chivalry so low in a man that he will take his lady’s adieu lying down.”
Her maid, hatted and veiled for travelling, whispered to her ear: