He glanced at the old red coble drawn up on the shore. It was the same he had seen three days before; he felt sure of it by its colour and its build.
He looked about him and around him for a means of ascent, and saw a zigzag path that wound up through the hanging orchards of olive, of lemon, and of orange, and higher still the rope-ladder called passerelle, so often used in the Riviera to climb steep rocks. The air was full of the intense perfume of the trees, which were starred all over with their white blossoms. He thought of Sicily, where you have to shut your door against the fragrance of the fields in spring, lest you should faint and sleep for ever from their fragrance.
The path and the passerelle would certainly, he reasoned, lead up to any house there might be at the summit. He slung his sketching things over his shoulder and began to mount the crooked rocky road of moss-grown stone with cyclamen growing in its crevices, and the rose-hued flowers of the leafless cereus springing up here and there.
But he was not allowed to ascend unchallenged; high above him there was a rustling sound, then a deep angry growl, and in a moment or two a great white Pyrenean dog showed himself, stared down at him with frank hostility, and bounded headlong from ridge to ridge underneath the boughs, with full intent to reach him and devour him. But a voice called aloud: 'Tò, tò, Clovis!' and Loswa smiled. He knew he had succeeded.
Through the labyrinth of branches, springing after the dog, came the girl who had thrown back the gold bracelet to the lady of St. Pharamond.
'The dog will not hurt you whilst I am here,' she called out to him. 'But he might kill you if I were not. Do you want my grandfather? Why have you landed here? It is private ground. He has gone to Grasse for two days to see an oil merchant.'
Loswa felt that he could not have timed his visit more felicitously.
'Good heavens! what a handsome child,' he thought, as he bowed to her with his easy grace and that eloquent glance which had power to stir the most languid pulses of his patrician sitters.
'I landed in hopes that I might be allowed to paint the view from this exquisite little spot,' he said with well-acted hesitation in his manner. 'A friend of mine, who is, I think, a friend of yours too, a priest of the name of Melville, has spoken to me so often of the beauty of your island.'
Standing above him, holding the big dog by the collar, she smiled at the name of Melville, and came a few steps nearer with more confidence. She never for a moment doubted the entire truth of what he said.