CHAPTER XXV

THE GENTLEMAN BOWS

I

The man was babbling French and weeping; weeping over a dead woman.

So much was clear.

His back was against the light. He wore no hat; and here and there a hair caught the sun and flashed like the sword of a fairy.

The dead girl must be lying with her head in his lap.

Unaware of anybody by, the young man poured out his heart: the dead woman was his little one, his darling of the chestnut hair, his petite pit-a-pat.

There was something so desolate about the grief of man, perched up there between sea and sky, nobody near but a floating sea-gull, that Kit almost wept to hear him.

But he had his own affairs to think about.

The man was a Frenchman: therefore an enemy.

What should he do?

As often happens, the question was decided for him.

Suddenly the projection on which his feet had found resting-place gave way.

A lurch, and he was dangling at arms' length. His toes could find no foothold. To drop even an inch or two was certain death: for he would land on a slope almost sheer; and the impetus must carry him--down-- down--down....

"Sir!" he gasped.

II

A face flashed over the cliff, eagle-beaked and beautiful.

A young man knelt above him.

"Hullo!" he said in voice of quiet amusement, peering down at the boy beneath him. "May I ask what you are doing here?"

If he was a Frenchman, he spoke English without a trace of accent.

"Hanging on for dear life!" gurgled Kit, the scent-bottle between his teeth.

The young man broke into a ripple of boyish laughter.

"Flew so far: then the wings gave out, eh?"

He rose to his feet, and Kit saw he was wearing buck-skin breeches and top-boots.

Bending, he grasped the boy's wrists.

"One--two--and--h'up she comes!"

He staggered back, and fell with a gay laugh, the boy on top of him.

"Thank you," said Kit between his teeth. "Let go my wrists, please."

The man, lying on his back, smiled up at him.

How strong he was! how young! and how handsome!

Tears still bedewed his lashes, and his eyes had the sparkle and colour of the sword he wore at his side.

"What have you got between those nice milk-teeth of yours, Little Chap?"

"Nothing for you," stammered the boy. "That is--only eggs. I've been birds-nesting. Let go, please. I must get home. I'm late. I'll get into a row as it is."

The other loosed his wrists suddenly; a long arm swept about him; the thumb and forefinger of a hand like a steel-vice pressed his jaws asunder.

"Parrdon," said a voice, half tender, half teasing, the roll of the r for the first time betraying an alien strain.

Perforce the boy must open.

The scent-bottle rolled out upon the grass, and trundled towards the edge.

Lithe as a panther, the young man pounced and snatched it.

As he did so, Kit leapt on his back.

"Give it up or I dirk!" he panted.

For all answer the man fell back on top of him with the merriest laughter.

The boy's breath was shaken out of him. Two hands loosed his; and he was left gasping on his back.

"I say! did I hurt you?" came an anxious voice.

Kit scrambled to his feet.

"Give it up!" he cried passionately, thrusting out a hand. "It was given me. It's a trust."

"It's only eggs," the other reminded him, twinkling.

"I don't care what it is!" cried the boy. "It's mine!"

He was almost in tears, stamping his foot, much as in old days when Gwen, a born tease, had stolen his woolly bear, and refused to give it up.

The man made him feel like a baby--he, a King's officer.

"Forgive me," replied the other. "It is mine."

"Finding's keeping, I suppose!" sneered the boy, ablaze. "You take it by brute force--you steal it--and it's yours! And I daresay you call yourself a gentleman!"

"When I said it was mine," replied the other with the grave tenderness of a gentleman dealing with an angry woman, "I meant it was mine. It was given me by a lady. These are her initials on the stopper--E.H., d'you see?--If I was to surrender this bottle to you, two things would happen. My work of weeks past would be undone, and a noble woman would be hung unjustly." He put the bottle into his pocket. "And now to prove to you that it really is mine I will tell you what it contains, shall I?--A letter on tissue paper signed A. F. Is it not so?"

The flames in the boy's soul were beaten back.

"How d'you know?" sullenly.

"I wrote it."

Breathing through his nostrils, Kit eyed him.

"Then you're the Gentleman."

The young man bowed with an action that was altogether French.

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