“Oh! is it?” and she so tottered on the rocky step that the hand he had put out in greeting became a support, and a tender one, as Lance said (perhaps with a little malice)—
“We heard that the Buccaneer Captain had come to grief.”
“I?” he laughed; and Gillian shook herself up, asking—
“Weren’t you run down?” seeing even as she spoke that not a drop of wet was traceable.
“Me! What! did you think I was going to peril my life in a ‘longshore concern like this?” said he, with a merry laugh, betraying infinite pleasure.
“But did nothing happen? Nobody drowned?” she asked, half disappointed.
“Not a mouse! A little chap, one of the fairies yesterday, tumbled off the sea-wall where he had no business to be, but he swam like a cork. We threw him a rope and hauled him up.”
Wherewith he gave his arm to Gillian, who was still trembling, and clasped it so warmly that Lance thought it expedient to pass them as soon as possible and continue his journey on the staircase, giving a low whistle of amusement, and pausing to look out on the beautiful blue bay, crowded with the white sails of yachts and pleasure-boats, with brilliant festoons of little flags, and here and there the feather of steam from a launch. He could look, for he was feeling lighter of heart now that the communication was over.
Perhaps Lance would have been edified could he have heard the colloquy—
“Gillian! you do care for me after all?”