"FAR, TOO FAR OFF FOR THOUGHT OR ANY PRAYER."

Mr. Colfox and Allegra met again in the drawing-room of the Angler's Nest at a quarter to eight. He was the first to arrive, and Isola had not yet appeared. Martin Disney was at his post in front of the library fireplace, library and drawing-room making one spacious room, lighted with candles here and there, and with one large shaded lamp on a table near the piano. Isola had been suffering from headache, and had been late in dressing. Captain Hulbert had been in the room nearly ten minutes before his hostess appeared, looking pale and ill in her black lace gown, and with an anxious[Pg 154] expression in her eyes. He had been introduced to Allegra, and was talking to her as if he had known her for years, when his attention was called off by Isola's appearance, and his introduction to her.

Was this Martin Disney's wife, he thought wonderingly—such a girlish fragile creature—so unlike the woman he had pictured to himself? Strange that Lostwithiel should not have told him of her delicate prettiness, seeing that he was a connoisseur in beauty, and hypercritical.

"This is just the kind of beauty he would admire," thought Hulbert, "something out of the common—a pale, spiritual beauty—not dependent upon colouring, or even upon regularity of feature—the kind of thing one calls soul, not having found a better name for it."

They went in to dinner presently, Captain Hulbert and Isola, Mr. Colfox and Allegra. Tho table was a small oval, at which five people made a snug little party. There was a central mass of white chrysanthemums, a cheerful glow of coloured Venetian glass, delicatest pink and jade-green, under the light of a hanging lamp. John Hulbert looked round him with a pleased expression, taking in the flowers, the glass, the cream-white china, the lamplight, everything; and then the two fair young faces, one pale and pensive, the other aglow with the delight of life, eagerly expectant of new ideas.

They talked of the Vendetta and the places at which she had touched lately. Captain Hulbert had spent his summer on the Eastern Liguria, between Genoa and Civita Vecchia.

"Wasn't it the wrong time of year for Italy?" asked Mr. Colfox.

"No, it is the season of seasons in the land of the sun. If you want to enjoy a southern country, go there in the summer. The south is made for summer, her houses are built for hot weather, her streets are planned for shade; her wines, her food, her manners and customs have all been made for summer-time—not for winter. If you want to know Italy at her worst go there in cold weather."

[Pg 155]

"Where did you leave Lord Lostwithiel?" Disney asked presently.

"I left him nowhere. He left me to rove about Southern Europe—left me on his way to Carinthia. He is like the wandering Jew. He used to be mad about yachting; but he got sick of the Vendetta all of a sudden, and handed her over to me. Very generous on his part; but the boat is something of a white elephant for a man of my small means. I wanted him to sell her. Wouldn't hear of it. To let her. Not to be thought of. 'I'll lend her to you,' he said, 'and you shall keep her as long as you like—sink her, if you like—provided you don't go down in her. She is not a lucky boat.'"

"Have you sailed her long?"

"Nearly a year, and I love her as if she were bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Let us all go for a sail to-morrow, Mrs. Disney—to Mevagissey or thereabouts. We could do a little fishing. It will be capital fun. What do you say, Miss Leland?"

"I should adore it," said Allegra, beaming at him. "The sea is my passion—and I think it is my sister's passion too. We are a kind of amphibious creatures, living more on water than on land. We venture as far as we dare in a row-boat—but oh, that is such a little way."

"I'm afraid that some day you will venture so far that you won't be able to get back again, and will find yourselves drifting away to America," said her brother.

Isola answered never a word, until Captain Hulbert addressed her pointedly for the second time.

"Will you go, Mrs. Disney—may we make up the party?"

"I would rather not," she answered, without looking at him.

"But why not? Are you such a bad sailor—in spite of all Miss Leland says of you?"

"I am a pretty good sailor in a row-boat—but not in a yacht. And I hate fishing—such a slow weary business. I would rather not go."

"I am so sorry; but you must not be worried about it,"[Pg 156] said Hulbert, kindly, seeing the growing distress in her countenance. "We will not go in for fishing—or excursions—but you and Miss Leland will at least come to afternoon tea on the Vendetta—to afternoon tea in the harbour. There used to be a comic song when I was a boy—'Come and drink tea in the arbour.' You must come to the arbour with an aspirate. It is not so rustic or sentimental—but there will be no earwigs or creeping things to drop into your tea-cup. Mr. Colfox, you will come, won't you?"

"I shall be delighted," answered the curate. "I have a sneaking kindness for all yachts."

The conversation drifted back to Lostwithiel and his works and ways, presently.

"When he went home two years ago he gave me to understand he was going to settle down at the Mount, and spend the rest of his days in peace and respectability," said Captain Hulbert. "Yet, very soon afterwards, he and his yacht were off again like the Flying Dutchman, and the next I heard of him was at Leghorn, and six months later he was coasting off Algiers; and the following spring he was in South America; and the Vendetta was laid up at Marseilles, where he begged me to............