"Has she gone out? But we were to go into Dinard this morning!"
"She's gone to St Briac, madam, and she said as she was going to see somebody at the Golf Club she might as well save one of us a journey and bring a bicycle back. It wasn't exactly your orders, madam, but there's a deal to do this morning what with this dance, and as Miss Oliphant was so kind I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind."
"Oh, I don't mind, except that it doesn't leave us much time for shopping. I shall go into Dinard, and you'd better tell Miss Oliphant to follow me when she comes back."
"Very good, madam."
"Anyway," said Madge, turning to me, "it certainly does save one of the maids a couple of hours, as long as Julia doesn't mind. But who has she gone to see at the Golf Club at nine o'clock in the morning?"
V
The dances of my time were the waltz, the cotillion and the quadrille, and as I am not a Pelmanist I have never acquired the dancing-fashions of to-day. So I stood by one of Madge's tubs of hydrangeas and watched. The large cream-and-gold room had a glazed end that opened on to the terrace and overlooked the crowded plage below, and when I wearied of watching the dancers I walked out on to this terrace, and when I was tired of watching the people who moved in and out among the tents and umbrellas and deck-chairs on the beach I returned to the dancing-room again. And much of the time I moved about out of sheer restlessness and apprehension.
Jennie had come to the Beverleys' party after all. She danced occasionally with young Rugby or young Marlborough, but kept more often close to her mother's side. And Julia Oliphant was there, not dancing at all, talking to Madge only infrequently, but gaily enough to everybody else—with the single exception of myself, whom (it seemed to me) she avoided in the most marked fashion. As for the others, they danced in flannels and blazers and varnished evening shoes, and the Beverley girls danced with one another.
What had happened at St Briac that morning? The question gave me no rest. Had Julia seen Derry? Idle to ask; of course she had. What had passed between them? Useless to try to guess. I had glanced at the Indicateur. She had caught the tram at St Enogat at eight-thirty-four and had taken the ten-fifty-three back, reaching St Enogat again at eleven-nineteen. Actually she had had two hours of but seven minutes at St Briac, and that was all I knew. Again she had seized her chance with ruthless instancy. Except for a night's rest, the very moment Jennie had been out of the running she had been at the door of his hotel. She had even had the effrontery to use Jennie's own bicycle as her pretext.