All night long--such are the curious inequalities of the human lot--a policeman stood at the mouth of the cave. While others toiled, he wearied of utter idleness. While others gasped for air, the sea breeze blew round him. While others sweated, he stamped his feet and swung his arms to keep himself warm. In the new society of which we dream, for which we strive, things must be better ordered. No longer must our souls be vexed by the contrast between excessive toil and listless idleness.
Yet--and here again we have an instance of the oddness of human affairs--the leisured policeman, yawning and stretching himself, missed something which came to the perspiring toilers in the cave--a thrill, a joy, a rapture which more than compensated for bleeding knuckles, broken nails and aching limbs.
The last case was secured in its sling and ascended slowly into the darkness. The work of the night was finished. In a few minutes Beth would be following the case, seated in the loop, clinging to the rope. Then Jimmy would follow her, and after that---- He hoped that Mrs. Eames had some beer in the vicarage. He believed she had. He thought she must have. No woman would be so foolish as to forget to have beer ready at the end of such a night. Beer! Not since the day when Sir Evelyn first drove down the hill into Hailey Compton had any man wanted beer so much as Jimmy wanted it then.
But Beth, it seemed, was not thinking of beer, or even of tea, which for some women takes the place of beer.
"Jimmy," she said softly, "do you remember the last time we were here?"
"Of course I do. A smuggler's ghost threw stones at us."
Beth paused for a while. Then the darkness, a wonderful solvent of maiden modesty, helped her to go on again.
"I think I said---- I mean, after you said---- You remember what you said----"
"I said what I've been saying for the last two years," said Jimmy. "And what you said was 'No.'"
"Jimmy," she burst out, "are you going to make me propose to you? Don't you see, you silly old dear, that that isn't a why any longer? You've been perfectly splendid to-night. You've thought of things and done things--and---- Oh, Jimmy, only for you where would everybody be to-morrow when the horrid Customs officers come to search the cave?"