“What’s the matter with me, Janet?” asked Lucy anxiously, catching her cousin’s eyes fixed upon her. “Is my dress wrong?”
“Not a bit—it’s lovely,” said Janet, rising with a jump as the musicians began tuning up below. “I must go down to Mother. It’s half-past eight. People will begin to come.”
The others followed and, down-stairs in the wide hall, beside one of the windows opening on the park, Michelle and Lucy paused by common consent and looked silently out on the moonlit loveliness. In the drawing-room the violins began to play, but softly, as though to lead on the gayety scarcely yet begun. Guests were filling the big house, and behind Lucy and Michelle Bob and Alan came quickly up.
“Here you are,” said Alan. “Come out and show yourselves. Lucy, Eaton and Archie are asking for you.”
But Bob had already caught Lucy’s arm, saying, “Let’s have the first dance together.”
The violins burst into life, and brother and sister swung out on to the floor, then through the long open windows, and danced on the stone terrace in the moonlight, their silence more understanding, just then, than any words.
At last Bob said, “Aren’t you glad we’re here, Captain? I think I’m almost happy.”
Lucy knew what he meant without a moment’s hesitation. Even in the Gordon family’s safe reunion there was something that Bob and Lucy could not forget. They were on friendly soil, and their hearts were warm to the friends around them, but they longed for America. Their thoughts were so much the same that Lucy’s words seemed an answer to Bob’s as she said:
“When we’re all back home, Bob! Can you help thinking of it? I go to sleep at night pretending we’re on a ship that’s just slipping in past Sandy Hook, and I feel like saying over and over to myself, 'This is my own, my native land!’”
“Oh, Lucy!” called Larry’s voice.