The day before the boat sailed, he met in the Cannebière some acquaintances, a Mr. and Mrs. Brett, who were also going to travel on the Henzada. It was an enormous relief to him to see them. It was really rather pathetic the way he cottoned to the quite insignificant pair, and the way all three of them clung together like drowning swimmers in this sea of foreignness. They seemed to unite at once in a triangular bond of opposition — with Anna standing outside. The Bretts were kindly disposed towards her. They wanted to include her in the bond. But when they saw that she would not be included, they disapproved. They went their own way — with Matthew — and Anna went hers. She turned away from the uninteresting, middle-aged couple and went out alone.
She walked to the garage and found the trim little driver. And set out with him in the snub-nosed Renault to have a last look at Cassis.
It was fine, with the lightest, most delicate sunshine, like early summer, and a haze over the mountains. But the breeze came cold from the sea, to the pine-trees and the changing, cloud-pale olives. The olives were always changing. In stillness they were all grey shadow, but quickly the sharp breath of the sea wind came to blow them into tremulous, smoky, silver fires.
Anna sat in the jolting car and looked about. It pleased her to be sitting there by herself behind the little French driver. From the back of his head, a sort of light-hearted French gallantry seemed to extend towards her; as though in an admiring, deferential, quite respectful, but not very serious way, he had made himself responsible for her welfare. She smiled to herself, feeling this.
At Cassis he skipped out with alacrity to open the door, and smiled at her with the rather precocious, rather impudent admiration that always amused her. His smallish black eyes rolling gaily, and an exaggerated, comic-opera devotion on his plump face, as though he would die for her. But she left him at the cafe and walked up to the olive grove alone.
She would not admit that she was thinking of the young artist; but when she saw him under the trees she was not very surprised. She looked down the vista of tree boles and dim grass, and saw him sitting on a stone against the wall, bare-headed and in a cardigan, dabbing away with his pointed brush. She knew him at once by his high, thin nose. And, although she could not see him very distinctly because of the leaves and the branches, she saw something that attracted her in him. His elegance, his youthfulness, something careless and a trifle thrilling. She was glad to get this second glimpse of him.
She walked towards him, over the short, dry grass. He looked up and saw her. She smiled in a shining, subtle fashion, changing her remote, coldly observant face.
‘May I see the picture?’ she asked, in French.
He curved his rather pale lips in an answering smile, and held out the sketch at arm’s length, so that she might look at it.
‘Is it finished?’ said Anna.
The young man looked up at her, and nodded, smiling. He was a handsome fellow, with a rather aristocratic, narrow face, and with a well-balanced appearance, graceful and debonair, and rather informal. Anna was pleased by the gay, mischievous look in his large, bold eyes. The pale, flexible curve of his mouth made him seem like a satyr to her. She looked at him inquiringly, waiting for his voice. But he only went on smiling his odd, wide, satyr’s smile.
She looked away at the sketch, which was somewhat wild and extravagant, with a great singing of blues and yellows. Anna knew nothing of painting. But he seemed to have caught a little of the day’s spirit in the strong tones.
‘I don’t know if it’s good. But I like it,’ she said.
Still he did not speak until her eyes compelled him. Then:
‘It is not very good,’ he said, rather stiltedly, to answer her.
‘You’re English!’ she cried, a little shrill with astonishment. And she watched the remarkable, pale smile growing on his mouth. It rather thrilled her to see it. His eyes twinkled with mischievous, wayward warmth, engaging: but his mouth was somehow thrilling to her.
‘Aren’t you?’ she persisted.
His eyes were joining now in the irresponsible, satiric smile. He tilted his face in a strange way, all glimmering in the pale grin.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘How extraordinary!’ she cried.
He swung his body from the waist, so lithe and shapely in the close-fitting woollen cardigan.
‘Why?’ he asked, looking up to her.
‘I should never have taken you for an Englishman,’ she said.
She intended a compliment; and so he seemed to understand, for his white teeth flashed in a grin of acknowledgement, sensitive and quick. Exciting to be understood, for a change.
Anna felt as though she were standing on the edge of time. Here she was in the silent, peaceful olive grove, under the shadowy trees. And to-morrow she would be utterly gone. Into this sequestered timelessness, where even the ancient olive trees merged unobtrusive shadows in a general shade, no worldly responsibility or consequence could penetrate. There was no future.
‘This is my last day on earth,’ she said slowly.
‘Mine too,’ he answered.
She looked at him, startled. How could he be so quick to understand her mood? It was uncanny.
‘And which is your next destination? Heaven — or the other one?’ He dropped his eyes suggestively to the ground in his careless, amused fashion.
‘Decidedly not heaven,’ she laughed. ‘A much hotter region. The tropics, in fact.’
‘Really? That is most intriguing.’ His supple body swung forward from the hips, towards her, his face peered at her intently, in a flicker of eager interest, saturnine. ‘I’m going to the tropics, too. To Ceylon. Sailing tomorrow.’ His eyes twinkled and dilated like an animal’s.
‘Are you — really? To-morrow?’ Anna half-closed her eyes and looked at him vaguely, as if she were not quite sure he was actually there.
‘Yes. On the Henzada,’ he said, standing up, and tilting his face with strange, suggestive mischievousness at her.
‘The Henzada is my boat —’ her voice was full of remote wonder.
He came closer and smiled his disturbing smile, under the fine, arched nose.
‘I knew it! I knew we had to know each other.’
He flashed a little look of mocking triumph, standing with head drawn back, a trifle affected, very blithe and winsome in his casual style.
The sun was setting. A slow red fume was blowing across the west, a fiery smoke against the duskier smoke-blue of the darkening sky. Anna was excited and gay. She knew that the young man found her attractive. His name, he told her, was Rex Findlay.
CHAPTER 12
THE Henzada was sailing at mid-day. Passengers must be aboard an hour or so earlier. Anna got a shock when she saw the boat lying there in the midst of the chaos of the docks. Such a wretched-looking little tub of a one-funnelled boat, it seemed scarcely larger than a channel steamer. She couldn’t believe that she was to travel for three solid weeks, day and night, in that. But when they got on board, and she saw the clean young stewards and the ship’s officers, quite efficient looking, she felt a bit reassured. There was quite a professional, sea-going orderliness and smartness about the men, though the boat itself was anything but up-to-date.