"No. I said last night I'd get her out there or I'd know the reason why. Well, now I know the reason against it." He nodded toward the two windows whose blinds were drawn.
"The reason doesn't seem to mind so much your wandering about the mainland with her 'little friend,'" Napier reflected out loud. "She seems to have a special scunner against islands. Why?"
"Especially against Gull Island," Julian agreed. And he too echoed, "Why?"
To the general surprise, Nan Ellis had risen early and vanished. Miss Greta had fallen asleep and, opening her eyes at eight--no Nan. The disappearance exercised a strikingly curative effect upon Miss Greta. She rose and dressed, and herself conducted a search. "_I_ know!" she said at last. "Nan has gone to get fresh clothes. She has a mania for never wearing twice what she calls a 'shirt waist.'"
Sir William had already left the breakfast table, and every one but Napier had finished. Still Miss Greta lingered. "She _must_ come soon--after leaving me like that."
And come she did; across the lawn, in full view of the dining-room windows, walking at Julian Grant's side, looking up into his face; Julian, talking with great earnestness, his right hand, palm upward, now raised, now lowered, with that weighing action Napier knew so well. They parted when they reached the path, and Nan came on alone, "Julian," she announced with no apparent self-consciousness in use of his name--"Julian's coming back to take me for a sail, whether anybody else wants to go or not."
"Oh, really!" Miss Greta exchanged a look with Napier.
"Thank you!" said Madge at her prickly pertest. "Since you are so pressing--"
"We must wait for the letters!" It was so that Miss Greta, coming out into the hall, announced her intention of being one of the party. So, too, she betrayed her cherished hope that Napier might join them.
"Of course Gavan must go." He, Sir William, wasn't going to be a spoil-sport! And he announced the fact with a roguish significance that made Miss Greta cast down her eyes. When she lifted them, there was the bag. It proved a light post. Sir William tore open two or three envelopes while he stood there.
"Anything in the papers?" Miss Greta asked Napier.
A glance at the outsides of her own letters seemed to satisfy her. Did she read other people's with the same facility?