While they sat basking in the balmy atmosphere, looking lazily at that bright, almost insupportable picture of blue sea under blue sky, there came the dip of oars, making music, and a sound of coolness with every plash of water.

’How good it is of somebody to row about, just to give us that nice soothing sound,’ murmured Lesbia.

Lady Kirkbank, with her dear old head thrown back upon the cushion of her luxurious chair, and her dear little cornflower hat just a thought on one side, was sleeping the sleep of the just, and unconsciously revealing the little golden arrangements which gave variety to her front teeth.

The soothing sound came nearer and nearer, close under the Cayman’s quarter, and then a brown hand clasped the man-ropes, and a light slim figure swung itself upon deck, while the boat bobbed and splashed below.

It was Montesma, who had not been expected till the racing, which was not to begin for two days.  A faint, faint rose bloom flushed Lady Lesbia’s cheek at sight of him; and Mr. Smithson gave a little look of vexation, just one rapid contraction of the eyebrows, which resumed their conventional placidity the next instant.

‘So good of you,’ he murmured.  ’I really did not expect you till the beginning of the week.’

’London is simply insupportable in this weather—­most of all for a man born in the Havanas.  My soul thirsted for blue water.  So I said to myself, This good Smithson is at Cowes; he will give me the run of his yacht and a room at his villa.  Why not go to Cowes at once?’

’The room is at your service.  I have only two or three of my people at Formosa, but just enough to look after a bachelor friend.’

‘I want very little service, my dear fellow,’ answered Montesma, pleasantly.  ’A man who has crossed the Cordilleras and camped in the primeval forest on the shores of the Amazon, learns to help himself.  So this is the Cayman? Muy deleitoso, mi amigo.  A floating Paradise in little.  If the ark had been like this, I don’t think any of the passengers would have wanted the flood to dry up.’

He shook hands with Lady Lesbia as he spoke, and with Lady Kirkbank, who looked at him as if he were part of her dream, and then he sank into the chair on Lesbia’s left hand, with the air of being established for the rest of the day.

‘I have left my portmanteaux at the end of the pier,’ he said lazily.  ’I dare say one of your fellows will be good enough to take them to Formosa for me?’

Mr. Smithson gave the necessary order.  All the beauty had gone out of the sea and the sky for him, all the contentment from his mind; and yet he was in no position to rebel against Fate—­in no position to say directly or indirectly, ’Don Gomez de Montesma, I don’t want you here, and I must request you to transfer yourself elsewhither.’

Lesbia’s feelings were curiously different.  The very sight of that nervous brown hand upon the rope just now had sent a strange thrill through her veins.  She who believed herself heartless could scarce trust herself to speak for the vehement throbbing of her heart.  A sense of joy too deep for words possessed her as she reclined in her low chair, with drooping eyelids, yet feeling the fire of those dark southern eyes upon her face, scorching her like an actual flame.