‘But a woman mightn’t. Scenery doesn’t impress them, though they pretend it does. This girl is as fickle as—’
‘You once were.’
‘Exactly—from your point of view. She has told me so—candidly. And it hits me hard.’
Somers stood still in sudden thought. ‘Well—that IS a strange turning of the tables!’ he said. ‘But you wouldn’t really marry her, Pierston?’
‘I would—to-morrow. Why shouldn’t I? What are fame and name and society to me—a descendant of wreckers and smugglers, like her. Besides, I know what she’s made of, my boy, to her innermost fibre; I know the perfect and pure quarry she was dug from: and that gives a man confidence.’
‘Then you’ll win.’
* * *
While they were sitting after dinner that evening their quiet discourse was interrupted by the long low whistle from the cliffs without. Somers took no notice, but Pierston marked it. That whistle always occurred at the same time in the evening when Avice was helping in the house. He excused himself for a moment to his visitor and went out upon the dark lawn. A crunching of feet upon the gravel mixed in with the articulation of the sea—steps light as if they were winged. And he supposed, two minutes later, that the mouth of some hulking fellow was upon hers, which he himself hardly ventured to look at, so touching was its young beauty.
Hearing people about—among others the before-mentioned married couple quarrelling, the woman’s tones having a kinship to Avice’s own—he returned to the house. Next day Somers roamed abroad to look for scenery for a marine painting, and, going out to seek him, Pierston met Avice.
‘So you have a lover, my lady!’ he said severely. She admitted that it was the fact. ‘You won’t stick to him,’ he continued.