"He was a scoundrel to keep you shut in down there," I declared; and then she told me of the old fellow's fabrications, really such atrocious lies that for a while I was undecided whether to thrash him or laugh. As it turned out, I laughed; because she did.
She had moved to the rail and rested her arms on it, leaning over and looking pensively down at the water. I, also, went to stand by her, but, in turning, my eyes happened to glance through one of the cabin portlights at Tommy. He was seated comfortably in a deep chair, Doloria's box of candy stood on the table within easy reach, the newspaper was in his hands, a cigarette hung from his lips, and Echochee was just bringing him the basket of fruit I had taken so much care at Key West to have made attractive.
"Picture of Tommy hurrying down for his cigarettes," I whispered. "Peep at him!"
As she leaned forward and the light fell on her serious face, the attractive curves of mischief, always so maddening, touched the corners of her mouth.
"Isn't he a dear," she murmured. "And there's nothing in the safe but the captain's old pipes?"
"That's all. Tommy's waiting to soothe the professor when he makes that discovery, and keep him from coming on deck."
She laughed guardedly, but there was no great spirit of fun in either of us, and again we turned back to our contemplation of the water, for a long time looking down at it in moody silence. I instinctively felt that she had not altered her decision.
In the distance off our starboard bow a hairlike line of slowly brightening silver, forerunner of the climbing moon, touched the far horizon. It resembled a shining lake upon a great dark waste, and I told her it was my love trying to light my life that had turned to night without her.
I know we were subdued by the witchery that comes with watching for the moon, because when its dome appeared her fingers gently tightened on my sleeve; nor did we speak until it stood serenely balanced upon the world's edge, sending to our feet a silvery pathway that twinkled on the waves. And then, by the merest accident of our position as the yacht changed its course among the keys, two far-off pine trees, appearing to move out side by side across the sea, stopped in the center of the moon. She caught her breath at the unusual beauty of this. That sigh from her, and the mystic night, all but drove me mad. My senses swayed with the throb of some vast indwelling orchestra.
"Let's take the silvery path," I whispered, putting my arms about her. "Look, it leads to the gate of our Secret world, where we first found happiness!"