“There’s Bayard waiting to meet us!” said her husband sharply. She opened one eye weakly, and discerned figures on the pier.
“‘The celebrated Colonel Bayard!’” she quoted in a dreamy whisper, and shut it again.
“But not Mrs Bayard!” Richard was evidently injured.
“Perhaps—the sight of—this sea—makes her—ill. I would not—wonder,” murmured Eveleen.
“Nonsense, my dear! Considering my friendship with Bayard, and the kindness she professed towards you when she heard——”
“Her husband maybe teased her—to come—so she wouldn’t,” and even in her misery Eveleen was conscious of triumph. It was something to have reduced Richard to speechless indignation, were it but for a moment.
“Halloo, Ambrose! Glad to see you, my dear fellow!” The words sounded startlingly near, and looking up quickly, she saw a small stoutish dark-moustached officer hanging perilously on what looked like a ladder just above them. As the canoe rocked this way and that with the motion of the waves, he seemed to be performing the wildest acrobatic feats, as though it were the pier and not the boat that rose and fell. She closed her eyes again hopelessly.
“Your poor wife overcome by all this landing business? I don’t wonder. Lift her up, man. Now, ma’am, give me your hand, and we’ll have you on firm ground in no time.”
The deep commanding voice mastered even her helpless lassitude, and she looked up into the kindest eyes she had ever seen. Her hand was seized in a strong clasp, and somehow—between Richard and Colonel Bayard—she was hoisted up the ladder before she had time to notice with horror how very rickety it was.
“‘Firm ground!’” she said reproachfully when she reached the top, for the pier seemed to be swaying every way at once, and between its sun-warped timbers the water was disconcertingly visible.