She came down late.

That same evening, out on the beach road, under a sky swarming with
stars, the people were strolling--folk from the towns, down for their
fortnight's holiday. In twos and threes, in parties of six or eight,
they passed the wall at the end of Lord Dennis's little domain; and the
sound of their sparse talk and laughter, together with the sighing of the
young waves, was blown over the wall to the ears of Harbinger, Bertie,
Barbara, and Lily Malvezin, when they strolled out after dinner to sniff
the sea. The holiday-makers stared dully at the four figures in evening
dress looking out above their heads; they had other things than these to
think of, becoming more and more silent as the night grew dark. The four
young people too were rather silent. There was something in this warm
night, with its sighing, and its darkness, and its stars, that was not
favourable to talk, so that presently they split into couples, drifting a
little apart.

Standing there, gripping the wall, it seemed to Harbinger that there were
no words left in the world. Not even his worst enemy could have called
this young man romantic; yet that figure beside him, the gleam of her
neck and her pale cheek in the dark, gave him perhaps the most poignant
glimpse of mystery that he had ever had. His mind, essentially that of a
man of affairs, by nature and by habit at home amongst the material
aspects of things, was but gropingly conscious that here, in this dark
night, and the dark sea, and the pale figure of this girl whose heart was
dark to him and secret, there was perhaps something--yes,
something--which surpassed the confines of his philosophy, something
beckoning him on out of his snug compound into the desert of divinity.
If so, it was soon gone in the aching of his senses at the scent of her
hair, and the longing to escape from this weird silence.

"Babs," he said; "have you forgiven me?"

Her answer came, without turn of head, natural, indifferent:

"Yes--I told you so."

"Is that all you have to say to a fellow?"

"What shall we talk about--the running of Casetta?"

Deep down within him Harbinger uttered a noiseless oath. Something
sinister was making her behave like this to him! It was that
fellow--that fellow! And suddenly he said:

"Tell me this----" then speech seemed to stick in his throat. No! If
there were anything in that, he preferred not to hear it. There was a
limit!

Down below, a pair of lovers