lying below, for it was only just
past low water and the tide was scarcely making. At the next berth higher
up, with lights gleaming at her innumerable portholes and two cranes hard
at work producing a mighty racket on her, lay a Channel steamer, which, by
comparison with the yacht, loomed enormous, like an Atlantic liner. Indeed,
the yacht seemed a very little and a very lowly and a very flimsy flotation
on the dark water, and her illuminated deck-house was no better than a toy.
On the other hand, her two masts rose out of the deep high overhead and had
a certain impressiveness, though not quite enough.

Audrey thought:

"Is this what we're going on? I thought it was a big yacht." And she had a
qualm.

And then a bell rang twice, extremely sweet and mellow, somewhere on the
yacht. And Audrey was touched by the beauty of its tone.

"Two bells. Nine o'clock," said Mr. Gilman. "Will you come aboard? I'll
show you the way." He tripped down the gangway like a boy. Behind could be
heard the sailors giving one another directions about the true method of
handling luggage.

Audrey had met Madame Piriac by sheer hazard in a corset shop in the Rue de
la Chaussee-d'Antin. The fugitive from justice had been obliged, in the
matter of wardrobe, to begin life again on her arrival trunkless in Paris,
and the business of doing so was not disagreeable. Madame Piriac had
greeted her with most affectionate warmth. One of her first suggestions had
been that Audrey should accompany her on a short yachting trip projected by
Mr. Gilman. She had said that though the excellent Gilman was her uncle,
and her adored uncle, he was not her real uncle, and that therefore, of
course, she was incapable of going unaccompanied, though she would hate to
disappoint the dear man. As for Monsieur Piriac, the destiny of France was
in his hands, and the moment being somewhat critical, he would not quit the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs without leaving a fixed telegraphic address.

On the next day Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac had called on Audrey at the
Hotel du Danube, and the invitation became formal. It was pressing and
flattering. Why refuse it? Mr. Gilman was obviously prepared to be her
slave. She accepted, with enthusiasm. And she said to herself that in doing
so she was putting yet another spoke in the wheel of the British police.
Immediately afterwards she learnt that Musa also had been asked. Madame
Piriac informed her, in reply to a sort of protest