And Saltash, with his royal air of graciousness, made light reply.
"I thank you for your congratulations, my children; but may the luck be yours! I see it coming."
And with that lightly he moved away among his guests, leaving a trail of merriment wherever he went, save where the boy and girl stood together in the bows in a silence that neither seemed able to break.
CHAPTER VII
SURRENDER
That night Fairharbour Bay looked like a velvet bed on which glittered many jewels. The Blue Moon, lighted from bows to stern lay in the centre, and from her deck there went up showers of coloured rockets that fell like burning rain upon the sea. There was a string band on board, and the strains floated across the water as echoes from another world—a wonder-world of soft melodies and laughing voices and lightly splashing oars.
Toby sat in the stern of a boat with a single rower in front of her, and trailed her fingers through the magic water. She was bare-headed, and the breeze of the summer night stirred tenderly the golden ringlets that clustered about her bow. Her face, seen now and then in the flare of the rockets, had a strange look, almost a look of dread. Her blue eyes were very wide open, like the eyes of a startled child.
She spoke scarcely at all, and Bunny did not urge her. Only as he rowed, he watched her with grave determination on his boyish face. He had claimed her as his partner early in the evening, and she had made no attempt to thwart him; but something in that half scared silence of hers moved him very deeply. His own was protective, resolutely reassuring.
Once, when she started nervously at an unexpectedly loud report from one of the rockets, he spoke to her as he would have spoken to a small, frightened animal.
"It's all right. I'll pull out a bit, shall I? These things make such a beastly row."