CHAPTER III


Drake repeated his question to Fielding two days later, after a dinner
with Conway at his club, but in a tone of languid interest.

'Why don't you ask Mallinson?' said Fielding. 'He knows her better
than I do.'

Conway contested the assertion with some heat.

'Besides,' added Drake, 'his imagination may have been at work. About
women, I prefer the estimate of a man of the world.'

The phrase was distasteful to a gentleman whose ambition it was to live
and to be recognised as living within view of, but outside the world, say
just above it in a placid atmosphere of his own creation. Fielding leaned
back in his chair to mete out punishment, joining the finger-tips with an
air of ordering a detailed statement.

'The inhabitants of Sark,' he began, 'were from immemorial times notable
not merely for their predatory instincts, but for the stay-at-home
fashion in which they gave those instincts play. They did not scour the
seas for their victims, neither did they till their island. There was no
need for so much exertion. They lay supine upon their rocks and waited
until a sail appeared above the horizon. Even then they did not stir till
nightfall. But after it was dark, they lighted bonfires upon suitable