She saw at once that he had fallen in with her mood, and knowing that she would play the lady of the manor he had dressed himself, even as she had done, as though for a party. The moonlight touched his white stockings, and glimmered on his silver-buckled shoes. His long coat was wine-coloured, and his sash the same, though in a deeper tone, and there was lace at his throat, and at his wrists. He still disdained the curled wigs of fashion, and wore his own hair, like a cavalier. Dona held out her hand to him, and this time he bent over it, as a guest should do, brushing it with his lips, and then stood on the threshold of the salon, by the long window, looking down upon her with a smile.
"Supper awaits you," she said, shy suddenly, for no reason, and he did not answer, but followed her in to the dining-hall, where William stood waiting behind her chair.
The guest stood a moment, looking about him at the blaze of candles, at the bright silver, at the shining plates with the rose border, and then he turned to the hostess, with that same slow mocking smile she had grown to expect: "Is it wise of you, do you think, to put all this temptation before a pirate?"
"It is William's fault," said Dona, "it is all William's doing."
"I don't believe you," he said; "William never made these preparations for me before, did you, William? You cooked me a chop and served it to me on a chipped plate, and you brushed away one of the covers of the chairs, and told me I must be content."
"Yes, sir," said William, his eyes glowing in his small round face, and Dona sat down, shy no longer, for the presence of William broke constraint between them.
He understood his role, playing the butt to perfection, laying himself open purposely to shafts of wit from his mistress, accepting with a smile and a shrug of the shoulder the mockeries of his master. And the crab was good, the salad excellent, the pastries light as air, the strawberries nectar, the wine perfection.
"I am a better cook than William, for all that," pronounced his master, "and one day you shall taste my spring chicken, roasted on a spit."
"I will not believe it," she said, "chickens were never roasted in that cabin of yours, like a hermit's cell. Cooking and philosophy do not go together."
"On the contrary, they go very well," he said, "but I will not roast your chicken in my cell. We will build a wood fire in the open, on the shores of the creek, and I will roast your chicken for you there. But you must eat it in your fingers. And there will be no candle-light, only the light of the fire."
"And perhaps the night-jar you told me about will not be silent," she said.
"Perhaps!"
He smiled at her across the table, and she had a sudden vision of the fire they would build, on the shore beside the water, and how the flames would hiss and crackle in the air, and how the good burnt smell of roasting chicken would come to their nostrils. The cooking would absorb him, even as his drawing of the heron absorbed him yesterday, and his planning of piracy would do tomorrow. She noticed, for the first time, that William had left them, and rising from the table she blew the candles, and led the way into the salon.
"Smoke, if you wish," she said, and there, on the mantelpiece before him, he recognised his jar of tobacco.
"The perfect hostess," he said.
She sat down, but he went on standing by the mantelpiece, filling his pipe, looking about the room as he did so.
"It is all very different from the winter," he said. "When I came then, the covers shrouded the furniture, and there were no flowers. There was something austere about the room. You have changed all that."
"All empty houses are like sepulchres," she said.
"Ah, yes - but I don't mean that Navron would have remained a sepulchre, had anyone else broken the silence."
She did not answer. She was not sure what he meant.
For a while there was silence between them, and then he said, "What brought you to Navron, in the end?"
She played with a tassel of the cushion behind her head.
"You told me yesterday that Lady St. Columb was something of a celebrity," she said, "that you had heard gossip of her escapades. Perhaps I was tired of Lady St. Columb, and wanted to become somebody else."
"In other words - you wished to escape?"
"That is what William told me you would say."
"William has experience. He has seen me do the same sort of thing. Once there was a man called Jean-Benoit Aubery, who had estates in Brittany, money, friends, responsibilities, and William was his servant. And William's master became weary of Jean-Benoit Aubery, and so he turned into a pirate, and built La Mouette."
"And is it really possible to become somebody else?"
"I have found it so."
"And you are happy?"
"I am content."
"What is the difference?"
"Between happiness and contentment? Ah, there you have me. It is not easy to put into words. Contentment is a state of mind and body when the two work in harmony, and there is no friction. The mind is at peace, and the body also. The two are sufficient to themselves. Happiness is elusive - coming perhaps once in a lifetime - and approaching ecstasy."
"Not a continuous thing, like contentment?"
"No, not a continuous thing. But there are, after all, degrees of happiness. I remember, for instance, one particular moment after I became a pirate, and I fought my first action, against one of your merchant ships. I was successful, and towed my prize into port. That was a good moment, exhilarating, happy. I had achieved the thing I had set myself to do, of which I had been uncertain."
"Yes," she said. "Yes - I understand that."
"And there have been other moments too. The pleasure felt after I have made a drawing, and I look at the drawing, and it has the shape and form of what I meant. That is another degree of happiness."
"It is easier then, for a man," she said, "a man is a creator, his happiness comes in the things that he achieves. What he makes with his hands, with his brain, with his talents."
"Possibly," he said. "But women are not idle. Women have babies. That is a greater achievement than the making of a drawing, or the planning of an action."
"Do you think so?"
"Of course."
"I never considered it before."
"You have children, have you not?"
"Yes - two."
"And when you handled them for the first time, were you not conscious of achievement? Did you not say to yourself, 'This is something I have done - myself? And was not that near to happiness?"
She thought a moment, and then smiled at him.
"Perhaps," she said.
He turned away from her, and began touching the things on the mantelpiece. "You must not forget I am a pirate," he said; "here you are leaving your treasures about in careless fashion. This little casket, for instance, is worth several hundred pounds."
"Ah, but then I trust you."
"That is unwise."
"I throw myself upon your mercy."
"I am known to be merciless."
He replaced the casket, and picked up the miniature of Harry. He considered it a moment, whistling softly.
"Your husband?" he said.
"Yes."
He made no comment, but put the miniature back into its place, and the fashion in which he did so, saying nothing of Harry, of the likeness, of the miniature itself, gave to her a curious sense of embarrassment. She felt instinctively that he thought little of Harry, considered him a dolt, and she wished suddenly that the miniature had not been there, or that Harry was in some way different.
"It was taken many years ago," she found herself saying, as though in defence; "before we were married."