"I'd like to read that aloud to you," muttered Hector, again glancing up; "shake your conceit a bit, I should say, or ought to."
He went on reading:
"'Only the male intellect befogged through the sexual impulse could call that undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex fair, for in the sexual impulse resides its whole beauty.'
"Beastly way of putting it," murmured Hector, who possessed the ultra refinement that is usually a characteristic of those in whom the moral sense is deficient, "and it's not true either—she's neither undersized nor short-legged. I'll take a walk past her now and look, to make sure, rather interesting this."
He rose, and moved slowly up the deck towards the reclining figure, who, at his approach, turned another page.
"I really believe he's going to at last," she thought, with a faint feeling of excitement. "No, he's not, he's shied again," as Hector went by looking straight before him. "Oh, this is too absurd, I must help him, I suppose." Whereupon away fluttered Stara's bookmarker, across the deck, a low exclamation of annoyance escaping her as she watched it nearing the ship's side.
Hector, turning at the sound and noting its cause, picked up the errant bookmarker and brought it back, indulging himself, as he did so, with a straight, steady stare into her eyes, and, meeting them, one of the odd fits of giddiness, which of late had been increasing in frequency, came over him; the sweat stood out on his forehead and the girl's figure was hidden for a moment in mist. He reeled, catching at the back of her chair for support; then fingers of steel gripped his arm and he found himself in Stara's chair, she standing looking down upon him, her eyes alert and interested.
"Damn!" said Graeme, when the mists had gone and he realised the situation.
"Certainly 'damn' if you like," was the answer in clear tones, "but don't move, stay where you are; d'you hear me?"
"I certainly won't, why should I?"