," he added a few minutes later. Bowles,
standing at his side, offered the single comment:

"Good-looking."

As the tall stranger stepped from the boat to the pier, Von Blitz
suddenly started back, a look of wonder in his soggy eyes. Then, a
thrill of satisfaction shot through his brain. He turned a look of
triumph upon Britt, who had elbowed through the crowd a moment before
and was standing close by.

The newcomer was an American!

CHAPTER IX

THE ENEMY

"I've sighted the Enemy," exclaimed Bobby Browne, coming up from
Neptune's Pool--the largest of the fountains. His wife and Lady
Deppingham were sitting in the cool retreat under the hanging garden.
"Would you care to have a peek at him?"

"I should think so," said his wife, jumping to her feet. "He's been on
the island three days, and we haven't had a glimpse of him. Come along,
Lady Deppingham."

Lady Deppingham arose reluctantly, stifling a yawn.

"I'm so frightfully lazy, my dear," she sighed. "But," with a slight
acceleration of speech, "anything in the shape of diversion is worth the
effort, I'm sure. Where is he?"

They had come to call the new American lawyer "The Enemy." No one knew
his name, or cared to know it, for that matter. Bowles, in answer to the
telephone inquiries of Saunders, said that the new solicitor had taken
temporary quarters above the bank and was in hourly consultation with
Von Blitz, Rasula and others. Much of his time was spent at the mines.
Later on, it was commonly reported, he was to take up his residence in
Wyckholme's deserted bungalow, far up on the mountain side, in plain
view from the chateau.

Life at the chateau had not been allowed to drag. The Deppinghams and
the Brownes confessed in the privacy of their chambers that there was
scant diplomacy in their "carryings-on," but without these indulgences
the days and nights would have been intolerable.

The white servants had become good friends, despite the natural disdain
that the trained English expert feels for the unpolished American
domestic. Antipathies were overlooked in the eager strife for
companionship; the fact that one of Mrs. Browne's maids was of Irish
extraction and the other a rosy Swede may have had something to do with
their admission into the exclusive set below stairs, but that is outside
the question. If the Suffolk maids felt any hesitancy about accepting
the hybrid combination as their equals, it was never manifested by word
or deed.