“It is necessary that I should return to the yacht,” he said savagely.  “The thought of you and Monsieur Gilman together, without me....  No!  I did not know myself. ...  I did not know myself....  It is impossible for me to leave.”

She made no answer.  They boarded the yacht as though they had been for a stroll.  Few could have guessed that they had come back from the universe terribly scathed.  Accepting deferential greetings as a right, Musa vanished rapidly to his cabin.

Several hours later Audrey and Mr. Gilman, alone among the passengers, were standing together, both tarpaulined, on the starboard bow, gazing seaward as the yacht cautiously felt her way down Mozewater.  Captain Wyatt, and not Mr. Gilman, was at the binnacle.  A little rain was falling and the night was rather thick but not impenetrable.

“There’s the light!” said Audrey excitedly.

“What sharp eyes you have!” said Mr. Gilman.  “I can see it, too.”  He spoke a word to the skipper, and the skipper spoke, and then the engine went still more slowly.

The yacht approached the Flank buoy dead slow, scarcely stemming the tide.  The Moze punt was tied up to the buoy, and Aguilar held a lantern on a boathook, while Jane Foley, very wet, was doing a spell of baling.  Aguilar dropped the boathook and, casting off, brought the punt alongside the yacht.  The steps were lowered and Jane Foley, with laughing, rain-sprinkled face, climbed up.  Aguilar handed her bag which contained nearly everything she possessed on earth.  She and Audrey kissed calmly, and Audrey presented Mr. Gilman to a suddenly shy Jane.  In the punt Miss Foley had been seen to take an affectionate leave of Aguilar.  She now leaned over the rail.

“Good-bye!” she said, with warmth.  “Thanks ever so much.  It’s been splendid.  I do hope you won’t be too wet.  Can you row all the way home?” She shivered.

“I shall go back on the tide, Miss Foley,” answered Aguilar.

He touched his cap to Audrey, mumbled gloomily a salutation, and loosed his hold on the yacht; and at once the punt felt the tide and began to glide away in the darkness towards Moze.  The yacht’s engine quickened.  Flank buoy faded.

Mr. Gilman and the two girls made a group.

“You’re wonderful!  You really are!” said Mr. Gilman, addressing apparently the pair of them.  He was enthusiastic. ...  He added with grandeur, “And now for France!”

“I do hope Mr. Hurley is still hanging about Moze,” said Audrey.  “Mr. Gilman, shall I show Miss Foley her cabin?  She’s rather wet.”

“Oh, do!  Oh, do, please!  But don’t forget that we are to have supper together.  I insist on supper.”

And Audrey thought:  “How agreeable he is!  How kind-hearted!  He hasn’t got any ‘career’ to worry about, and I adore him, and he’s as simple as knitting.”

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE IMMINENT DRIVE