away with a step that was almost brisk. I was a little disconcerted. But I
was also more than a little glad. The restfulness of silence, the charm of
liberty--these things were not, after all, forfeit. My heart thanked Laider
for that; and throughout the week I loyally seconded him in the system he
had laid down for us. All was as it had been last year. We did not smile
to each other, we merely bowed, when we entered or left the dining-room
or smoking-room, and when we met on the wide-spread sands or in that
shop which had a small and faded but circulating library.

Once or twice in the course of the week it did occur to me that
perhaps Laider had told the simple truth at our first interview and an
ingenious lie at our second. I frowned at this possibility. The idea of any
one wishing to be quit of ME was most distasteful. However, I
was to find reassurance. On the last evening of my stay I suggested, in
the small smoking-room, that he and I should, as sticklers for precedent,
converse. We did so very pleasantly. And after a while I happened to
say that I had seen this afternoon a great number of sea-gulls flying close
to the shore.

"Sea-gulls?" said Laider, turning in his chair.

"Yes. And I don't think I had ever realized how extraordinarily
beautiful they are when their wings catch the light."

Laider threw a quick glance at me and away from me.

"You think them beautiful?"

"Surely."