The “Four Seasons” Hotel was on the esplanade facing the northern beach. Living up to its name, it announced on an illuminated signboard, “Inclusive terms for winter visitors; special attention to invalids, etc.” Here in a great glass restaurant, with the unruffled blue of ocean spread out before us, we ate the king of breakfasts, dismissed the waiter, and over long and fragrant Havanas examined my mail at leisure.
“What a waste of good diplomacy!” was my first thought, for nothing had been tampered with, so far as we could judge from the minutest scrutiny, directed, of course, in particular to the franked official letters (for to my surprise there were two) from Whitehall.
The first in order of date (October 6) ran: “Dear Carruthers.—Take another week by all means.—Yours, etc.”
The second (marked “urgent”) had been sent to my home address and forwarded. It was dated October 15, and cancelled the previous letter, requesting me to return to London without delay—“I am sorry to abridge your holiday, but we are very busy, and, at present, short-handed.—Yours, etc.” There was a dry postscript to the effect that another time I was to be good enough to leave more regular and definite information as to my whereabouts when absent.
“I’m afraid I never got this!” I said, handing it to Davies.
“You won’t go, will you?” said he, looking, nevertheless, with unconcealed awe at the great man’s handwriting under the haughty official crest. Meanwhile I discovered an endorsement on a corner of the envelope: “Don’t worry; it’s only the chief’s fuss.—M——” I promptly tore up the envelope. There are domestic mysteries which it would be indecent and disloyal to reveal, even to one’s best friend. The rest of my letters need no remark; I smiled over some and blushed over others—all were voices from a life which was infinitely far away. Davies, meanwhile, was deep in the foreign intelligence of a newspaper, spelling it out line by line, and referring impatiently to me for the meaning of words.
“Hullo!” he said, suddenly; “same old game! Hear that siren?” A curtain of fog had grown on the northern horizon and was drawing shorewards slowly but surely.
“Well, we must get back to the yacht. We can’t leave her alone in the fog.”