“Then, good-bye!” he said, coldly ignoring all her maternal suggestions.  And turned away.

“Where are you going to?”

He stopped.

“I do not know.  But if I do not deceive myself I have already informed you that in certain circumstances I should not return to the yacht.”

“You are worse than a schoolboy.”

“It is possible.”

“Anyway, I shan’t explain on the yacht.  I shall tell them that I know nothing about it.”

“But no one will believe you,” he retorted maliciously over his shoulder.  And then he was gone.

She at any rate was no longer surrounded by the largeness of the universe.  He might still be, but she was not.  She was in mind already on the yacht trying to act a surprise equal to the surprise of the others when Musa failed to reappear.  She was very angry with him, not because he had been a rude schoolboy and was entirely impossible as a human being, but because she had allowed herself to leave the yacht with him and would therefore be compelled sooner or later to answer questions about him.  She seriously feared that Mr. Gilman might refuse to sail unless she confessed to him her positive knowledge that Musa would not be seen again, and that thus she might have to choose between the failure of her plans for Jane Foley and her own personal discomfiture.

Instead of being in the mighty universe she was struggling amid the tiresome littleness of society on a yacht.  She hated yachts for their very cosiness and their quality of keeping people close together who wanted to be far apart.  And as she watched the figure of Musa growing fainter she was more than ever impressed by the queerness of men.  Women seemed to be so logical, so realistic, so understandable, so calculable, whereas men were enigmas of waywardness and unreason.  At just that moment her feet reminded her that they had been wetted by the adventure in the punt, and she said to herself sagely that she must take precautions against a chill.

And then she thought she detected some unusual phenomenon behind a clump of bushes to the right which hid a plank-bridge across a waterway.  She would have been frightened if she had not been very excited.  And in her excitement she marched straight up to the clump, and found Mr. Hurley in a crouching posture.  She started, and recovered.

“I might have known!” she said disdainfully.

“We all make mistakes,” said Mr. Hurley defensively.  “We all make mistakes.  I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as I got here, but I couldn’t get away quietly enough.  And you talked so loud.  Ye’ll admit I had just cause for suspicion.  And being a very agreeable lady ye’ll pardon me.”

She blushed, and then ceased blushing because it was too dark for him to perceive the blush, and she passed on without a word.  When, across the waste, she had come within sight of the yacht again, she heard footsteps behind her, and turned to withstand the detective.  But the overtaker was Musa.