Even her friends felt themselves called upon to make excuses for her unlikeness to themselves . Nora had dosed the door behind her to shut in the voices . She wanted to be alone with the wind while she made her decision . Before her the sandy shingle , made firm by a straggling growth of some pale sea-ivy , sloped down to the sapphire cup of the harbour . Around her were the small , uncouth houses of the village -- no smaller or more uncouth than the one which was her home -- with children playing noisily on the paths between them . The mackerel boats curtsied and nodded outside ; beyond them the sharp tip of Sandy Point was curdled white with seagulls . Down at the curve of the cove a group of men were laughing and talking loudly in front of French Joe 's fish-house . This was the life that she had always known . Across the harbour , on a fir-fringed headland , stood Dalveigh . John Cameron , childless millionaire , had built a summer cottage on that point two years ago , and given it the name of the old ancestral estate in Scotland . To the Racicot fishing folk the house and grounds were as a dream of enchantment made real . Few of them had ever seen anything like it . Nora Shelley knew Dalveigh well . She had been the Camerons ' guest many times that summer , finding in the luxury and beauty of their surroundings something that entered with a strange aptness into her own nature . It was as if it were hers by right of fitness . And this was the life that might be hers , did she so choose . In reality , her choice was already made , and she knew it . But it pleased her to pretend for a little time that it was not , and to dally tenderly with-the old loves and emotions that tugged at her heart and clamoured to be remembered . Within , in the low-ceilinged living room , with its worn , uneven floor and its blackened walls hung with fish nets and oilskins , four people were sitting . John Cameron and his wife were given the seats of honour in the middle of the room .
Mrs. Cameron was a handsome , well-dressed woman , with an expression that was discontented and , XXXXX times , petulant .
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