“Talk of the—­lady!” he whispered.  “Here she comes.”

And a second glance intercepted Mrs. Lascelles on the steps, with her bold good looks and her fine upstanding carriage, cut clean as a diamond in that intensifying atmosphere, and hardly less dazzling to the eye.  Yet her cotton gown was simplicity’s self; it was the right setting for such natural brilliance, a brilliance of eyes and teeth and colouring, a more uncommon brilliance of expression.  Indeed it was a wonderful expression, brave rather than sweet, yet capable of sweetness too, and for the moment at least nobly free from the defensive bitterness which was to mark it later.  So she stood upon the steps, the talk of the hotel, trailing, with characteristic independence, a cane chair behind her, while she sought a shady place for it, even as I had stood seeking for her:  before she found one I was hobbling toward her.

“Oh, thanks, Captain Clephane, but I couldn’t think of allowing you!  Well, then, between us, if you insist.  Here under the wall, I think, is as good a place as any.”

She pointed out a clear space in the rapidly narrowing ribbon of shade, and there I soon saw Mrs. Lascelles settled with her book (a trashy novel, that somehow brought Catherine Evers rather sharply before my mind’s eye) in an isolation as complete as could be found upon the crowded terrace, and too intentional on her part to permit of an intrusion on mine.  I lingered a moment, nevertheless.

“So you didn’t go to that hut after all, Mrs. Lascelles?”

“No.”  She waited a moment before looking up at me.  “And I’m afraid Mr. Evers will never forgive me,” she added after her look, in the rich undertone that had impressed me overnight, before the cigarette controversy.

I was not going to say that I had seen Bob before he started, but it was an opportunity of speaking generally of the lad.  Thus I found myself commenting on the coincidence of our meeting again—­he and I—­and again lying before I realised that it was a lie.  But Mrs. Lascelles sat looking up at me with her fine and candid eyes, as though she knew as well as I which was the real coincidence, and knew that I knew into the bargain.  It gave me the disconcerting sensation of being detected and convicted at one blow.  Bob Evers failed me as a topic, and I stood like the fool I felt.

“I am sure you ought not to stand about so much, Captain Clephane.”

Mrs. Lascelles was smiling faintly as I prepared to take her hint.

“Doesn’t it really do you any harm?” she inquired in time to detain me.

“No, just the opposite.  I am ordered to take all the exercise I can.”

“Even walking?”

“Even hobbling, Mrs. Lascelles, if I don’t overdo it.”

She sat some moments in thought.  I guessed what she was thinking, and I was right.

“There are some lovely walks quite near, Captain Clephane.  But you have to climb a little, either going or coming.”