his vanity that, almost insensibly, he had asserted himself by assuming the role of her cav&lier. She had accepted his attentions gracefully and watched with amusement the skilful way in which he jockeyed other men who were always eager to serve her in small matters out of the chance to do so; but he and she had never been alone together for more than a few minutes and no word of their past feelings for one another had passed between them.
On this evening he had only just changed in one of the beach huts and walked out on to the sand when he saw Gulia and Dona Eulalia coming down from the house towards him. As they approached Gulia waved to him and cried:
T wondered what had happened to you this morning, until Frangois told me at lunch that you had been sent for to the Palace. But it's a lovely evening for a bathe and when I saw you from the house just now I felt I too must come in for a swim.'
Dona Eulalia settled herself with her embroidery in her usual chair and de Richleau made casual conversation with her while Gulia was changing. The bathing dress she wore this summer differed considerably from the one in which she had swum with him three years ago. The fashion had become both more elegant and practical. Skirts were now only knee-length, there was no heavy ruching about the shoulders, no sleeves and the material was much thinner; so the female form was more obviously discernible and women were not so heavily handicapped when swimming by the weight of water-soaked serge.
That, perhaps, partly accounted for the fact that Gulia had become a much stronger swimmer; and when, having joined him on the foreshore, she suggested that they should swim out to the point he had no doubts about her ability to cover the distance.
After wading out they swam side by side for ten minutes, then he shot ahead so as to reach the rocks first and help her up on to them. Near the point there protruded a flattish slab. It had been warmed by a long day of sunshine and there was no wind. Sitting on it they could wriggle their toes in the pools below them as the gentle swell rose and fell. They were still within sight of
Dona Eulalia, sitting something over a quarter of a mile away in front of the row of beach huts, but apart from that they were as much alone between sea and sky as if they had been on a desert island.
For a few minutes they sat in silence, getting back their breath, then Gulia pulled off her swimming cap, shook out her hair so that it fell over her shoulders, and said, 'Now, Armand, I want to hear what really happened to you in Cadiz. All you've told us is that you killed Sanchez in a fight, but his friends caught you and shipped you off to South America. I want to hear every detail from the moment you left me.'
She alone knew that it was not so much Sanchez that he had gone after as the photograph with which he feared Sanchez meant to blackmail them, and he now gave her the full story of his doings in Granada with La Torcera, in Cadiz with red-headed Inez, and the final scene in the Silver Galleon.
When he had done she sighed. 'And to think that negative had already been ruined before Sanchez made his escape from you in the garden. If only we had known. You would never have been shanghaied, and I would have been spared the worst month of my life. I nearly died from an agony of uncertainty about what had happened to you.'
'My dear,' he murmured gently. 'It distresses me greatly that you should have suffered so much on my account.'
She turned and looked at him, her eyes shining. 'How could it have been otherwise? I loved you desperately. I feared that those devils must have killed you and that I would never see you again.'
'The moment I reached Rio I sent a cable to Frangois and wrote fully to Jos6. It was impossible to let you know what had become of me any sooner.'
'I know; but you might also have written a personal letter to me; if only a line to say that you still loved me and that I need not fear that photograph being produced.'
'I did consider doing that,' he replied after a moment, 'but I felt there was too great a risk of such a letter falling into wrong hands. Had Jos6 chanced to open it by mistake, or should you have had an accident or been taken ill, or had he recognized my writing and asked you what was in it, the fat would have been in the fire. He could only have assumed from it that you had become my mistress; and as things never reached that point such a denouement would have been doubly unfortunate.'
Her full lips twitched in a little smile as she asked, 'Have you ever regretted that they didn't reach that point?'
'Often,' he admitted frankly. The man isn't born who, having had the chance to make love to you and did not take it, would not afterwards ask himself if he had not been stricken with madness.'
Thank you for the compliment.' Her smile broadened. 'But I don't doubt you found plenty of lovely young women to console you while you were in the Americas!'
He gave a little laugh. 'Plenty implies a lot; and I have always been a
'I was not made to be a saint, either.' She shrugged her fine shoulders. 'Since we parted I have taken four lovers. Mostly out of boredom, it is true; but at least they have saved me from shrivelling up into a mummy physically, and I have had quite a lot of fun pulling the wool over old Dona Eulalia's eyes in order to give my lovers rendezvous without her suspecting anything.'
'Has Jos6 any idea of this?'
'Perhaps; but I rather doubt it. Anyhow, as I told you long ago, I don't think he would have any serious objection provided I managed my
For a moment she was silent, then she turned her head again, looked full at him and asked, 'Tell me, Armand; do you still feel any love for me?'
In a flash he saw the danger signal blazing red ahead. 'No,' he said firmly. 'Affection, yes; but love, no. Time is a great healer and I got over that.'
Her Giaconda smile came again. 'You are lying, Armand. You are lying, and you know it.'
She gave a low, happy laugh. 'I knew you would. But I had to have a little time to bring you to it. That is why I gave you such a cold reception on your arrival. If I hadn't you would have taken alarm and sheered off, wouldn't you?'
T suppose I would,' he admitted a shade ruefully. 'But Gulia, though you may look an angel you are certainly a fallen one.
Only a daughter of the Devil would have laid such a snare for anyone in such a position as myself.'
'I'm nothing of the kind,' she laughed again. 'I am just a woman -a woman in search of a man. It so happens that I have a healthy, lovely body and a very much better brain than most members of my sex. I don't have to be told that, I know it; so why shouldn't I use my assets to secure a lover who is healthy, handsome and intelligent too - a man like you?'
'I don't blame you. And I only wish it could be me.'
'Well, why not?' She raised a well-marked eyebrow in faint mockery. 'Jos6 is thousands of miles away chasing butterflies - real butterflies this time. The de Tarancons are going home at the end of the week, and Francois is leaving too.'
'Is he?' exclaimed de Richleau. 'Why?'
'He has volunteered for service in Morocco, and is going out with the regiment of which last year Don Alfonso made him Colonel-in-Chief. He leaves with the Taranc6ns the day after tomorrow. Ruiz is in Madrid. He may return for a night or two occasionally but, apart from him, that leaves only Maria Alfonsine, her lady Dona Isabella and old Eulalia, and as far as human relationships are concerned they are all as blind as bats. Now that there will be room in the house, since I shall be so heavily chaperoned, no breath of scandal could arise if I invited you to come and stay, just as you did before.'
The Duke put his head between his hands and groaned, 'Gulia! Gulia! When Thais tempted Paphuntius he was subjected to nothing worse than this. You are an experienced woman of the world and must know how greatly
