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She hung her head and swung the parasol slightly to and fro. I thought a little. "Do you know French, Miss de Barral?" I asked. She made a sign with her head that she did, but without showing any surprise at the question and without ceasing to swing her parasol. "Well then, somehow or other I have the notion that Captain Anthony is what the French call un galant homme.
It was difficult to guess what the girl thought or what she felt. She no longer looked a child. She whispered to Fyne a faint "Thank you," from the fly, and he said to her in very distinct tones and while still holding her hand: "Pray don't forget to write fully to my wife in a day or two, Miss de Barral."
The girl was known in the streets, was stared at in public places as if she had been a sort of princess, but she was kept with a very ominous consistency, from making any acquaintances though of course there were many people no doubt who would have been more than willing to h'm make themselves agreeable to Miss de Barral.
She wasn't going to put up with such a life and, having just come out of some ducal family, she bullied de Barral in a very lofty fashion. To pacify her he took a splendidly furnished house in the most expensive part of Brighton for them, and now and then ran down for a week-end, with a trunk full of exquisite sweets and with his hat full of money.
The very drabs of the pavement, poor things, didn't escape the fascination... However! ... Well the greatest portion of the press were screeching in all possible tones, like a confounded company of parrots instructed by some devil with a taste for practical jokes, that the financier de Barral was helping the great moral evolution of our character towards the newly-discovered virtue of Thrift.
A true emotion had unsealed his lips but the words that came out of them were no louder than the murmur of a light wind. It died away. "That's just it," said Flora de Barral under her breath. Without removing his eyes from her he took off his hat. It was a tall hat. The hat of the trial. The hat of the thumb-nail sketches in the illustrated papers.
And then remembering little Fyne stuck upstairs for an unconscionable time, enough to blurt out everything he ever knew in his life, I reflected that he would assume naturally that Captain Anthony had nothing to learn from him about Flora de Barral. It had been up to now my assumption too. I saw my mistake. The sincerest of women will make no unnecessary confidences to a man.
In the first flight, the party reached the height of 19,500 feet, and came to a temperature of 7 degrees, or 25 degrees below the freezing-point, which, considering the state of the temperature at the surface, was an unexpected result in fact, an abnormal one; and not dissimilar to that which so much astonished our neighbours across the Channel when Barral and Bixio went up.
It's a transgression all the same and has got to be paid for in the usual way. But never mind that. I paused because, like Anthony, I find a difficulty, a sort of dread in coming to grips with old de Barral. You remember I had a glimpse of him once.
He banged it down resolutely and in that smooth inexpressive tone so many ears used to bend eagerly to catch when it came from the Great de Barral he said: "Let's get away." She had the strength of mind not to spin round. On the contrary she went on to a shabby bit of a mirror on the wall.
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