"She is married and lives on Saaron Island. But you know this, of course? You who seem to know everything about us."
"My sister writes me all the news.... So now," she added smiling, "it is all explained, and there is no mystery about me after all. Are you so very much disappointed?"
But the Commandant continued to stare. No mystery? That the fisherman"s daughter with the Island lilt in her voice--well he recalled it!--should have turned into this apparition of furs and jewels?... And yet the metamorphosis lay not in the furs and jewels, but in her careless air of command, of reliance upon her power, beauty, charm--whatever her woman"s secret might be; an air of one accustomed to move in courts, maybe, or to control great audiences, or to live habitually with lofty thoughts; an air of one, above all, sure of herself. The poor Commandant had lived the better part of his life in exile, but by instinct of breeding he recognised this air at once.
Vashti, however, seemed to mistake his astonishment, for she frowned.
"Well?" she asked, a trifle impatiently.
"Your sister never told us," he stammered. "At least--that is to say----"
"Do you suppose she was ashamed of me?"
"Ashamed?" he echoed, for indeed no such thought had occurred to him.
If ever a man could have taken _honi soit qui mal y pense_ for his motto, it was our Commandant.
"Ah, to be sure!" she said slowly, but less in indignation (it seemed) than in disappointment with him. "Naturally that would be the explanation to occur to you, living so long in such a place."
She turned on her heel, half contemptuously, and resumed her way, walking with a yet quicker step than before. The Commandant, aware that he had offended, but not in the least understanding how, toiled after her up the steep incline to the garrison gate.
They reached the door of the Barracks. To his surprise it was standing open, and from behind the ragged blind of his sitting-room--to the left of the entrance hall--a light shone feebly out upon the fog. He could not remember that he had lit the lamp there, nor that he had left the front door open.
Vashti paused upon the doorstep and turned to him:
"My good sir," she said curtly, "run and fetch Mrs. Treacher to me, for goodness" sake."
He hesitated, on the point of stepping past her to open the door of the lighted room. Her manner forbade him, and he stood still, there by the doorstep, gazing after her a moment as she disappeared into the dark hall. Then, as he heard the door latch rattle gently, he turned to hurry in search of Mrs. Treacher.
He had taken but a dozen steps, however, when her light footfall sounded again close behind him. She, too, had turned and was following him almost at a run.
"Why didn"t you tell me?" she gasped.
He swung up his lantern. Her eyes were wide with a kind of horror; and yet she seemed to be laughing, or ready to laugh.
"Tell you?" he echoed.
"Oh, but it was unkind!"
"But--but, excuse me--what on earth----"
"Why, that you were entertaining ladies!"
"Ladies!"
She nodded, still round-eyed, reproachful. "Two of them--sitting on your sofa! And, I think--I rather think--one of them is Miss Gabriel!"
CHAPTER VII
TRIBULATIONS OF MRS. POPE AND MISS GABRIEL
"We have only to keep straight on," said Miss Gabriel.
"Ye-es," said Mrs. Pope, less hardily. "I really think the gentlemen might have waited for us."
"For aught they know," said Miss Gabriel, "it"s a matter of life and death. And we cannot be more than two hundred yards from our own gates."
"In my opinion," persisted Mrs. Pope, who was apt to turn peevish when frightened, "a man"s first duty is to look after his own."
"Is it?" snapped Miss Gabriel, herself no coward. "Well, you must argue that out with Mr. Pope, if you haven"t made up your minds about it by this time. For my part, I never wanted a man to look after me, I thank the Lord."
"It would have been more gallant, and that you must allow." Mrs. Pope stuck to her point (which is a capital thing to do in a fog), but only to let it go abruptly a moment later. "Besides," she added, "my new cap is no better than a pulp already. I can feel it. Sopping isn"t the word."
"Fiddlestick!" said Miss Gabriel. "You and your cap!" She, herself, was not frightened, only a little nervous. "If you ask me, it"s better you were thinking of those poor souls out on the rocks yonder. Little enough they"ll be thinking, just now, of such things as caps!"
"Of course," hazarded Mrs. Pope, after they had groped their way forward for twenty paces or so, "if you are quite certain where we are----"
"We are among the Islands," said Miss Gabriel, tartly, feeling the roadway with the edge of her shoe, for her sole had just encountered turf; "and this is one. My dear Charlotte, if you could refrain from b.u.mping into me at the precise moment when I am standing on one leg----"
"How can I help it, in this darkness?" whimpered Mrs. Pope.
"Besides"--with sudden spirit--"if you want to stand on one leg, I shouldn"t have thought this the time or the place."
"T"cht!" said Miss Gabriel, striding forward with gathering confidence; but at the seventh stride or so a sharp exclamation escaped her, as she stood groping with both hands into the night.
"What"s the matter?"
"It"s a wall, I think.... I had almost run against it.... Yes, this must be the wall of b.u.t.tershall"s garden."
"Are you sure?"
"Certain. We have been bearing away to the right; people always do in a fog."
"Then if this really is b.u.t.tershall"s garden--and I only hope and trust you are not mistaken--we can bear away from it to the left, on purpose, and then as likely as not we shall find ourselves going straight,"
reasoned Mrs. Pope, lucidly.
"My dear Charlotte"--Miss Gabriel was within an ace of calling her a fool--"if this is b.u.t.tershall"s garden----"
"But a moment ago you were sure of it!"
"And so I am. Very well then; since this is b.u.t.tershall"s garden, we have only to hold on by the wall and go forward, and that will take us----"
But here the wall ended, and the sentence with it.
"Ai-ee!"
"Are you hurt?... I said," a.s.serted Mrs. Pope, desperately, and with conviction, "that one of us would break a limb before we finished."