She laughed herself. "And you are dancing before me! Good-bye, good-bye, Denny Gayde! Let's be friends always."
From the garden she watched the Miami steam slowly down the narrow harbour, and, passing the lighthouse, turn to the open sea. She watched it until it was but a black speck with a dark feather of smoke, and then until the feather and all had melted into the sky. "Well," she said, "there's work and beauty and high cheer, and Time that smooths away most violences!"
But she did not see Denny and Rose Darragh in May. That evening at dinner Medway was more than usually good company. He had a high colour; his hair and curling beard had been cut just the length that was most becoming; he looked superbly handsome. Often he affected Hagar as would a very fine canvas, some portrait by Titian. To-night was one of these nights.
Greer dined with them, and he was urging Medway as he had urged before to let him paint him. "Fortune's smiling on us both--on you as well as me. Neither of us may have such a chance again! Let me--ah, let me!"
"What should I do with it when it was done, and if I liked it--which you know, Greer, is not dead certain? You can't hang portraits in a nomad's tent, and I haven't a soul in the world to give it to,--my mother would like a coloured photograph of me, but she wouldn't like Greer's picture,--unless Gipsy will take it when she sets up her own establishment--"
"I will take it with thanks," said Hagar. "Let Mr. Greer do it."
Medway said he would consider it. Dinner went off gaily with stories and badinage. Afterwards the traveller from the Colonial came in, and then the violinist. He played for them--played rhapsodies and fantasias. It was after eleven when the three guests departed. Greer's gay voice could be heard down the street--
"'A Saint-Blaise, à la Zuecca, Vous étiez, vous étiez bien aise A Saint-Blaise. A Saint Blaise, à la Zuecca Nous étions bien là--'"
Thomson appeared, with Mahomet behind him to put out the lights.
"Good-night--sleep right!" said Medway. "Pleasant fellows, aren't they?"
Toward daylight she was awakened by a knock at her door, followed by Thomson's voice. "Mr. Ashendyne has had some kind of a stroke, Miss Hagar--" She sprang up, threw on a kimono, opened the door, and ran downstairs with Thomson. "I heard him breathing heavily--I've waked Mahomet and sent the black boy for the doctor--"