“Down the beach.” Blanche started. Her hand poised halfway to an olive. She heard what her ears had been pricking for—horses’ feet on the gravel drive.
With an effort she held herself quiet.
The Spanish maid opened the dining-room door. “Some one to see you, señora.”
Blanche, who had half risen, sank back in her chair.
“Why, who can it be?” Mrs. Remi was murmuring as she went into the hall.
Blanche sat listening, lips apart. She heard her mother exclaim; then a man’s voice exclaimed; she knew the voice; she rose. Her heart seemed beating in her throat. She heard her mother’s voice, perplexed, emphatic: “But she’s all right; she’s very well. There’s some mistake!”
Then Walter Carter’s, insisting: “But they were both in the water. Hemming saw her bring Lillian out. He drove my sister home. How could Blanche——” When she burst upon them.
“Walter!” The sight of him, wild-haired, pale, his mackintosh over his evening clothes, his general look of catastrophe, struck her with only one significance.
“Mrs. Gueste?” she gasped. “How is she?”
For a moment Walter could only stare at her, dazed. He had seen his sister—drenched, disheveled, white, unconscious—carried into the house. And here stood Blanche, vital, vigorous, self-possessed, groomed for a function.