II
JUNE
As it happened, John Willie did not go off fishing on the morrow. He expected that Minetta would be in bed when he got home, but as he passed up the path he saw a light burning high in the front of the house. It was in the room beneath that date-stone under which he had once put a sixpence, and that room, because of its high and uninterrupted view of the sea, was one of the guest-chambers. He wondered who had come.
His supper was laid in the dining-room, but he did not want it, and so passed straight upstairs. As he turned along the landing to his own room he heard a door opened on the floor above, and his sister called "Is that you?" He answered, entered his bedroom, and began to undress.
But he had scarcely got his boots unlaced when there came a tap at the door, and Minetta entered. Her dark hair was in plaits, she wore a wrap over her nightdress, and she carried on her hip a tray with two claret-stained glasses and a salver with a cut cake. Evidently there had been a girls' bedroom orgie.
"Who's come?" John Willie asked, throwing aside his second boot.
"June Lacey. You knew she was coming," Minetta answered accusingly.
"No, I didn't—first I've heard of it."
"You never hear anything when you're reading a newspaper. I told you at breakfast this morning, and that she was going to wire the time of the train. And you were out, and I had to leave everything and go and meet her myself."