She spoke of her ‘exile’:  wanted Skepsey to come down to her; moaned over the loss of her Louise.  The puzzle of the reason for the long separation from her parents, was evident in her mind, and unmentioned.

They turned on to the pier.

Nesta reminded him of certain verses he had written to celebrate her visit to the place when she was a child: 

’"And then along the pier we sped,
And there we saw a Whale
He seemed to have a Normous Head,
And not a bit of Tail!"’

’Manifestly a foreigner to our shores, where the exactly inverse condition rules,’ Colney said.

’"And then we scampered on the beach,
To chase the foaming wave;
And when we ran beyond its reach
We all became more brave."’

Colney remarked:  ‘I was a poet—­for once.’

A neat-legged Parisianly-booted lady, having the sea, winds very enterprising with her dark wavy, locks and jacket and skirts, gave a cry of pleasure and—­a silvery ‘You dear!’ at sight of Nesta; then at sight of one of us, moderated her tone to a propriety equalling the most conventional.  ‘We ride to-day?’

‘I shall be one,’ said Nesta.

‘It would not be the commonest pleasure to me, if you were absent.’

‘Till eleven, then!’

‘After my morning letter to Ned.’

She sprinkled silvery sound on that name or on the adieu, blushed, blinked, frowned, sweetened her lip-lines, bit at the underone, and passed in a discomposure.

‘The lady?’ Colney asked.

’She is—­I meet her in the troop conducted by the riding-master:  Mrs. Marsett.’

‘And who is Ned?’

’It is her husband, to whom she writes every morning.  He is a captain in the army, or was.  He is in Norway, fishing.’

’Then the probability is, that the English officer continues his military studies.’

‘Do you not think her handsome, Mr. Durance?’

’Ned may boast of his possession, when he has trimmed it and toned it a little!

‘She is different, if you are alone with her.’

‘It is not unusual,’ said Colney.

At eleven o’clock he was in London, and Nesta rode beside Mrs. Marsett amid the troop.

A South-easterly wind blew the waters to shifty goldleaf prints of brilliance under the sun.

‘I took a liberty this morning, I called you “Dear” this morning,’ the lady said.  ’It’s what I feel, only I have no right to blurt out everything I feel, and I was ashamed.  I am sure I must have appeared ridiculous.  I got quite nervous.’

‘You would not be ridiculous to me.’

’I remember I spoke of Ned!

‘You have spoken of him before.’

’Oh!  I know:  to you alone.  I should like to pluck out my heart and pitch it on the waves, to see whether it would sink or swim.  That’s a funny idea, isn’t it!  I tell you everything that comes up.  What shall I do when I lose you!  You always make me feel you’ve a lot of poetry ready-made in you.’