“Well, this was a facer.  It never occurred to any of us—­eh?—­that this island might have an owner.  To tell the truth, I’m a stickler for the rights of property, at home; but somehow the notion of an island like this belonging to any one had never entered my head.  Yet the thing is reasonable enough when you come to think it over; and, of course, I saw that it put an entirely different complexion upon our business here.”

“My dear Lydia,” put in Mr. Rogers, impatiently, “the man’s claim must be absurd.  Why, the island is right in the tropics!”

“You wouldn’t have thought it a bit absurd if you had heard him,” retorted Miss Belcher.  “He appeared to be quite sure of his ground.  Very pleasant about it, too, he was; said that few visitors ever honoured his out-of-the way home, but that as soon as any arrived he always made it a matter of—­of punctilio (yes, that was the word) to put off and bid them welcome.  He spoke with the slightest possible foreign accent, but used admirable English:  and, I don’t know why,” wound up Miss Belcher, ingenuously, “but he seemed to divine from the first that I was an Englishwoman.”

“And it wasn’t as if we had come here flaunting British colours,” added Plinny.

“But what sort of man was he?” asked the Captain.

“Height, six foot two or three in his stockings; age, about sixty; face, clean shaven and fleshy; the features extraordinarily powerful; hair, jet black, and dyed (if at all) by a process that would make his fortune if he sold the secret; clothes, black alpaca and well cut, with silk stockings that would be cheap at two guineas, and shoes with gold buckles on ’em.  I couldn’t take my eyes off—­no display about ’em—­and yet I doubt if King Louis of France over wore the like before they cut his head off.  Complexion, pale for this climate, with a sort of silvery shine about it.  Manner charming, voice charming, bearing fit for a grand seigneur; and that’s what he is, or something like it, unless, as I rather incline to suspect, he’s the biggest scoundrel unhung.”

“Oh, Miss Belcher!” protested Plinny.  “When you agreed with me that he might have sat for a portrait of a gentleman of the old school!”

“Tut, my dear!  When I saw that you had lost your heart to him as soon as he set foot on deck!  Did I say ‘of the old school’?  Yes, indeed, and of the very oldest; and, in fact, quite possibly the Old Gentleman himself.”

Now, either I had spoiled Captain Branscome’s temper for the day, or something in this speech of Miss Belcher’s especially rasped it.

“But who is this man?” he demanded, in a sharp, authoritative voice.

Miss Belcher stepped back half a pace.  I saw her chin go up, and it seemed to grow square as she answered him with a dangerous coldness.

“I beg your pardon.  I thought I told you that he gave his name as Dr. Beauregard.”

“You had no business, ma’am, to allow him on board the ship.”