I felt in no humour to turn in just then, for I was rather used to late hours; therefore I passed through the lounge and out upon the terrace, in order to smoke and think. The clouds were lifting, and the moon was struggling through, casting an uncertain light across the broad dark waters.
I had thrown myself into a wicker chair near the end of the terrace, and, with a cigarette, was pondering deeply, when, of a sudden, I saw a female figure, wrapped in a pale blue shawl, coming in my direction.
I recognized the cream skirt and the shawl. It was Sylvia! Ah! how inexpressibly charming and dainty she looked!
When she had passed, I rose and, meeting her face to face, raised my hat and spoke to her.
She started slightly and halted. What words I uttered I hardly knew, but a few moments later I found myself strolling at her side, chatting merrily in English. Her chiffons exuded the delicate scent of Rose d’Orsay, that sweet perfume which is the hall-mark of the modern well-dressed woman.
And she was undoubtedly English, after all!
“Oh no,” she declared in a low, musical voice, in response to a fear I had expressed, “I am not at all cold. This place is so charming, and so warm, to where my father and I have recently been—at Uleaborg, in Finland.”
“At Uleaborg!” I echoed. “Why, that is away—out of the world—at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia!”
“Yes,” she declared, with a light laugh. “It is so windy and cold, and oh! so wretchedly dull.”
“I should rather think so!” I cried. “Why, it is almost within the Arctic Circle. Why did you go up there—so far north—in winter?”