Chapter Seven LUNCHEON ABOARD
Noon.
The famous promenade was deserted, and all the foreigners who were able were safe in the coolest retirement of their little pink and white villas. A warm off-shore breeze wandered through the silent streets of Nice, came to the water-front, and there, as if alarmed by the noise and bustle of the few sailors and fishermen whom the heat had not driven from the quays, grew brisker and fled away southward over the sea.
Down one of the smaller streets between the Hôtel des Anglais and the Porta Vecchia, Mrs. Fairhew and her niece, escorted by Jack, were making their way. Miss Marchfield, dressed in a simple gown of white, looked deliciously rosy under her red sunshade. Mrs. Fairhew walked in the narrow strip of shadow next the wall; Katrine was between her and Jack, who, owing to the straitness of the sidewalk, picked his way—to the evident amusement of Miss Marchfield—along the kennel. As Katrine was fond of him, she paradoxically took unfailing delight in seeing him humiliated, always provided, of course, that no one other than herself was the author of the discomfort. The three were nearing the water-front when the elder lady broke a silence of some minutes' duration.
"I hope the yacht is not very much farther, Mr. Castleport," she ventured.
"No," Jack answered, "she's at the foot of the next street. 'Twas awfully stupid of me not to have got hold of a fiacre, but it seems so short a distance for me to walk that I didn't think."
"I wonder why a yacht is always she and her," observed Katrine. "Why not it?"
"Oh, the reason's plain enough," was Jack's answer. "Yachts have two characteristics that are thoroughly feminine,—caprice and beauty."