"Do you know of a quiet hotel? I can send for my maid in the morning."
"An hotel—here—that you can go to alone? It's not possible."
She met this with a pale gleam of her old playfulness. "What is, then? It's too wet to sleep in the gardens."
"But there must be some one———"
"Some one to whom I can go? Of course—any number—but at this hour? You see my change of plan was rather sudden———"
"Good God—if you I'd listened to me!" he cried, venting his helplessness in a burst of anger.
She still held him off with the gentle mockery of her smile. "But haven't I?" she rejoined. "You advised me to leave the yacht, and I'm leaving it."
He saw then, with a pang of self-reproach, that she meant neither to explain nor to defend herself; that by his miserable silence he had forfeited all chance of helping her, and that the decisive hour was past.
She had risen, and stood before him in a kind of clouded majesty, like some deposed princess moving tranquilly to exile.
"Lily!" he exclaimed, with a note of despairing appeal; but—"Oh, not now," she gently admonished him; and then, in all the sweetness of her recovered composure: "Since I must find shelter somewhere, and since you're so kindly here to help me———"
