"It is about this very girl that he has written."
Pauline looked up quickly. "She is dead?"
"No! No! I suppose you think that because she always looked such a tragedy. However, she is very ill, out of danger now, but of course not able to ride—she was in the Hippodrome, you know—and apparently she has no money, so one must do something for them. Poleski has barely enough for two, especially under these circumstances."
"I am sorry," Pauline said gently. "I remember how she used to sit all day and look at the sea. Monsieur Poleski left her too much alone, and always spoke so roughly, but I think he loved her."
Vladimir gave a short laugh.
"You're wrong there, child. No, I'm sure that's not the case with
Poleski."
"But she loves him?"
"Possibly! She always seemed to me uncanny with those extraordinary eyes, and that voice. Poleski has certainly failed to educate her as regards taste in clothes. You saw how she was dressed when she came on board—!"
Half an hour later the anchor was up, and they were cutting through the white-crested waves. The girl pointed to a green headland on the left that rose suddenly and overhung the water like a sentinel on guard.
"I have been watching that all the morning in the distance, and I could think of nothing but the Winged Victory in the Louvre. You remember how she stands on a rough-hewn pedestal at the head of the marble staircase, and she is all alone against a dull red background. And as one looks one goes back all those centuries, and sees her as she was on the day the Greeks set her up to celebrate their great sea-victory. It must have all looked just as it does to-day, those centuries ago in the Island of Samothrace. There was a strong wind blowing, and the waves met and raced and leapt together, and the sky was the same wonderful colour that it is now, and there were wild birds hovering and screaming round her."