'Presently the man came out again and, to my great thankfulness, drove the car down to the quay and left it there. He strolled back past me toward the inn. Just at that moment another beastly car came twisting down, and a woman got out of it, dressed in the brightest chintz frock I have ever seen, scarlet poinsettias, I think they were, and she had on one of these big native straw hats - Cuban, aren't they? - in very bright scarlet.

'This woman didn't stop in front of the inn but drove the car farther down the street toward the other one. Then she got out and the man, seeing her, gave an astonished shout. 'Carol,' he cried, 'in the name of all that is wonderful. Fancy meeting you in this out-of-the-way spot. I haven't seen you for years. Hello, there's Margery - my wife, you know. You must come and meet her.'

'They went up the street toward the inn side by side, and I saw the other woman had just come out of the door and was moving down toward them. I had had just a glimpse of the woman called Carol as she passed by me. Just enough to see a very white powdered chin and a flaming scarlet mouth, and I wondered - I just wondered - if Margery would be so very pleased to meet her. I hadn't seen Margery near to, but in the distance she looked dowdy and extra prim and proper.

'Well, of course, it was not any of my business, but you get very queer little glimpses of life sometimes, and you can't help speculating about them.

'From where they were standing I could just catch fragments of their conversation that floated down to me. They were talking about bathing. The husband, whose name seemed to be Denis, wanted to take a boat and row around the coast. There was a famous cave well worth seeing, so he said, about a mile along. Carol wanted to see the cave, too, but she suggested walking along the cliffs and seeing it from the land side. She said she hated boats. In the end, they fixed it that way. Carol was to go along the cliff path and to meet them at the cave, and Denis and Margery would take a boat and row round.