Harry cogitated. The daughters of France were no doubt very lovely, but they were imaginative; and though Madelaine Van Heldre might, as his aunt said, not be of the pure Huguenot blood, still that fact did not seem to matter to him. For that was not imagination before him, but the bright, natural, clever girl whom he had known from childhood, his old playfellow, who had always seemed to supply a something wanting in his mental organisation, the girl who had led him and influenced his career, and whom he now told himself he loved very dearly, principally because he felt bound to look up to her and submit to all she said. It was a very raw, green, and acrid kind of love, though Harry Vine was not aware of the fact, and he leaped to his feet. "Bother Aunt Marguerite!" he said to himself, and then a loud, "Come along!" in happy ignorance of the fact that his good genius had prepared for him an antidote for the poison of vanity lately administered by his aunt. CHAPTER SIX. HARRY VINE SPEAKS PLAINLY; SO DOES HIS FRIEND. In perfect ignorance of their presence, Louise and Madelaine went on down by the water's edge, picking their way among the rocks with an activity that would have startled some of their contemporaries, whose high heeled shoes and non perpendicular walk would have rendered such progress impossible. They were in profound ignorance of the fact that they were followed at a distance of about a couple of hundred yards, for Harry kept back his more eager friend, partly from a peculiar shrinking of a duplex nature, relating as it did to whether he was doing right in letting Pradelle make such very pronounced approaches to his sister, and the reception his own words would have upon Madelaine. The two friends female were then in profound ignorance of the fact that they were watched, so were the two friends male. For some time past the owner of the mine high up on the cliff, whose engine shaft went trailing along the ground like a huge serpent, higher and higher, till it reared its head for a landmark on the hill overlooking the sea, had for some time past been awakening to the fact that he had a heart, and that this heart was a good deal moved by Louise Vine. Till now he had been a thoroughly energetic man of business, but after the first introduction to the Vine family his business energy seemed to receive an impetus. He was working for her, everything might be for her. Then came Pradelle upon the scene, and the young Scot was not long in seeing that the brother's London friend was also impressed, and that his advances found favour with Harry. Whether they did with the sister he could not tell. The consequence was that there was a good deal of indecision on Duncan Leslie's part, some neglect of his busy mine, and a good deal of use of a double glass, which was supposed to be kept in a room, half office, half study and laboratory, for the purpose of scanning the shipping coming into port.