The dolphin? Yes, he told me. It must have been strange." The strangest thing to her Greek mind was, I could see, that anyone should have gone to that amount of trouble. "But your coat, Miss Lucy! I don't know if it will ever come right!"
I laughed. "It did get rather a beating, didn't it? I thought you'd be wondering what I'd been doing."
"I knew you must have fallen in the sea, because of your dress and coat… and the bathroom, po po po. I have washed the dress, but the coat must go to a proper cleaner."
"Oh, goodness, yes, you mustn't bother with it. Thanks very much for doing the dress, Miranda. Well, when you see Adoni, will you thank him for bringing these things? And for the message. That was all, that all was well?"
"Yes."
"That's fine," I said heartily. "I did wonder. Sir Julian wasn't feeling well last night, and I was worried."
She nodded. "He will be all right this morning."
I stared for a moment, then realized that she knew exactly what my careful meiosis meant, and was untroubled by it. The Greek mind again: if a man chose to get drunk now and again, what did it matter except to himself? His women would accept it as they accepted all else. Life here had its shining simplicities.
"I'm very glad," I said, and went out towards the pine woods.
As soon as I was out of sight of the house I left the path and climbed higher through the woods, where the trees thinned and a few scattered pines stood on top of the promontory. I spread my rug in the shade, and lay down. The ground was felted with pine needles, and here and there grew soft furry leaves of ground ivy, and the pretty, dull pink orchids, and lilac irises flecked with white. The Castello was hidden from view by its trees, but from this height I could just see, on the southern headland, the roof of the Villa Rotha. The Forli house was visible below me. In the distance, beyond the sparkling sea, lay the mountains of Epirus. Their snow had almost gone, but farther north the Albanian peaks still gleamed white. There, beneath them, would be the rocks where Spiro had gone ashore, and where Max had brought him off under the coastguards' guns. And there, a coloured cluster under the violet hills of Epirus, was Igoumenitsa, where the ferry ran…
I had brought a book, but couldn't read, and it was not long before I saw what I had been expecting: Godfrey, coming with an air of purpose along the path round the headland. He didn't descend into the bay; just stood there, as if looking for someone who might have been on the beach or in the sea. He waited a little while, and I thought at one point that he was going to cross the sand and climb to the Forli house, but he didn't He hung around for a few minutes more, then turned and went back.
Some time later my eye was caught by a glimpse of moving white, a glint beyond the treetops that rimmed the sea; and presently a boat stole out under sail from beyond the farther headland, cutting a curved path of white through the glittering blue.
I lay, chin on hand, watching her.
She was not unlike a boat that Leo had owned some years back, and on which I had spent a holiday one summer, the year I had left school. She was a powered sloop, perhaps thirty feet overall, Bermuda-rigged, with—as far as I could make out—a mast that could be lowered. That this was so seemed probable, since from something Godfrey had said I assumed she was Dutch-built, so might presumably be adapted for canal cruising and negotiating low bridges. In any case, I had gathered last night that she was customarily moored not in the bay, but in the boathouse; and even if this was built on the same lavish scale as the Castello and designed to house several craft, it would have to be a vast place indeed to take the sloop's forty-odd-foot mast. Her hull was sea grey, with a white line at the bows. She was a lovely craft, and at any other time I would have lain dreamily admiring her sleek lines and the beauty of her canvas, but today I merely wondered about her speed—seven or eight knots, I supposed—and narrowed my eyes to watch the small black figure at the tiller, which was Godfrey.
The sea raced glittering along the grey hull (grey for camouflage?); the white wake creamed; she turned, beautiful, between me and the sun, and I could see no more of her except as a winged shape heading in a long tack out to sea, and then south, towards Corfu town,
"Lucy?" said the telephone.
"Yes. Hullo. You're very faint."
"Did you get the message from Adoni?"
"Yes. Just that all was well, so I assumed you'd got away safely. I hope it still is?"
"So far, a bit discouraging, but I'm still hoping. What about you?"
"I'm fine, thank you, and all's well here. Calm and normal, as far as I can see. Don't worry about this end."
"Ah." A slight pause. Though I knew there was no one else in the house, I found myself glancing quickly around me. Max's voice said, distant in my ear, "You know this libretto I came over here to discuss with t