IV.—Before Lunch.
I found Myra in the hammock at the end of the loggia.
"Hallo," I said.
"Hallo." She looked up from her book and waved her hand. "Mentone on the left, Monte Carlo on the right," she said, and returned to her book again. Simpson had mentioned the situation so many times that it had become a catch-phrase with us.
"Fancy reading on a lovely morning like this," I complained.
"But that's why. It's a very gloomy play by Ibsen, and whenever it's simply more than I can bear I look up and see Mentone on the left, Monte Carlo on the right—I mean, I see all the loveliness round me, and then I know the world isn't so bad after all." She put her book down. "Are you alone?"
I gripped her wrist suddenly and put the paper-knife to her throat.
"We are alone," I hissed—or whatever you do to a sentence without any "s's" in it to make it dramatic. "Your friends cannot save you now. Prepare to—er—come a walk up the hill with me."
"Help! Help!" whispered Myra. She hesitated a moment; then swung herself out of the hammock and went in for her hat.
We climbed up a steep path which led to the rock-village above us. Simpson had told us that we must see the village; still more earnestly he had begged us to see Corsica. The view of Corsica was to be obtained from a point some miles up—too far to go before lunch.