He stood aside, for Kingswell and Ouenwa to pass out before him. Kingswell went first. As Ouenwa crossed the threshold, D'Antons nipped him sharply by the arm, and hissed, "Dog! Cur!" in a voice so low, so sinister, that the boy gasped. But in a breath the Frenchman was his affable self again, and the Beothic, with the invectives still burning his ears, almost believed that he had been the victim of some evil magic. Kingswell caught nothing of the incident.
Ouenwa was requested to wait outside. Master Kingswell was ushered into the governor's cabin, and D'Antons closed the door behind him. The young Englishman found himself in a dimly lit apartment very similar to that which he had just left. He hesitated, a step inside the threshold, and narrowed his lids in an effort to see more clearly. The Frenchman paused at his elbow. Two figures advanced from the farther side of the room. He ventured another step, and bowed with all the grace at his command, for one of the figures was that of a young woman in flashing raiment. The other was of a slim, foppishly dressed man of a little past middle age, with a worn face that somehow retained its air of youthfulness despite its haggard lines and faded skin.
"Welcome to our humble retreat, Master Kingswell," said the gentleman, extending his hand and laughing softly. "This is indeed an unlooked-for pleasure. We last met, I believe, at Randon Hall—or was it at Beverly?"
"Sir Ralph Westleigh!" exclaimed Kingswell, in a voice of ill-concealed consternation and surprise. For a moment he stood in an attitude of half-recoil. For a moment he hesitated, staring at the other with wide eyes. Then he caught the waiting hand in a firm grip.
"Thank you, Sir Ralph. Yes, it was at Beverly that we last met," he said, evenly. He turned to the girl, who stood beside her father with downcast eyes and flaming cheeks and throat. The baronet hastened to make her known to the visitor.
"My daughter Beatrix," he said. "A good girl, who willingly and cheerfully shares her worthless father's exile."
Mistress Westleigh extended a firm and shapely hand, and Kingswell, bending low above it, intoxicated by the sudden presence of beauty and a flood of homesick memories, pressed his lips to the slim fingers with a warmth that startled the lady and brought a flash of anger to D'Antons' eyes. He recovered himself in an instant. "To see you in this wilderness—amid these bleak surroundings!" he exclaimed, scarcely above a whisper. "I cannot realize it, Mistress Beatrix! And once we played at racquets together in the court at Beverly."
The girl smiled at him, with a gleam of understanding in her dark, parti-coloured eyes.
"I remember," she said. "You have not changed greatly, save in size." And at that she laughed, with a note of embarrassment.