No more was said of Ras Fendihook. The man's broad, flashy good-humour had caught her fancy; his vagabond life stimulated her imagination of wider horizons; he promised her release from the conventions and restrictions of her artificial existence; she was ready to embark with him, as his wife, into the Unknown; but it was evident that she had not given him the tiniest little scrap of her heart.
"Why didn't you tell me all this long ago?" asked Jaffery.
"I tried to be good to please you—you and Barbara and Hilary, who've been so kind to me."
"It's all this infernal civilisation," he declared. "My dear girl, I'm as much fed up with it as you are; I want to go somewhere and wear beads."
"So do I," said Liosha.
I thought of Barbara's lecture on the whole duty of woman and I chuckled. The attitude in which I was, my hands clasped round my knees, consorted with sardonic merriment. I was checked, however, a moment afterwards, by the sight of my barbarians in the perfect agreement of babyhood calmly walking away from me along the cliff road. I jumped to my feet and pursued them.
"At any rate while you're with me," I panted, "you'll observe the decencies of civilised life."
CHAPTER XIX
"Arrêtez! 'Arrêtez!" roared Jaffery all of a sudden.