CHAPTER XII
EXIT A LADY, LAUGHINGLY
AFTER dinner Minot lighted a cigar and descended into the hotel gardens for a stroll. Farther and farther he strayed down the shadowy gravel paths, until only the faint far suggestion of music at his back recalled the hotel's lights and gaiety. It was a deserted land he penetrated; just one figure did he encounter in a fifteen minutes' walk—a little man clad all in white scurrying like a wraith in the black shade of the royal palms.
At a distant corner of the grounds near the tennis-courts was a summer-house in which tea was served of an afternoon. Into this Minot strolled, to finish his cigar and ponder the day's developments in the drama he was playing. As he drew a comfortable chair from moonlight into shadow he heard a little gasp at his elbow, and turning, beheld a beautiful vision.
208
