Logotheti produced a whistle from his pocket and blew on it, and a quartermaster answered the call, and was sent for the captain, who came in a few moments.
'Head her about for Jersey and Carterets, Captain,' said the owner. 'The sea is as flat as a board, and we will land there. You can go on to the Mediterranean without coaling, can you not?'
The captain said he could coal at Gibraltar, if necessary.
'Then take her to Naples, please, and wait for instructions.'
Baraka understood nothing, but within two minutes she saw that the yacht was changing her course, for the afternoon sun was all at once pouring in on the deck, just beyond the end of her chair. She was satisfied, and nodded her approval.
But she did not speak for a long time, paying no [{265}] more attention to Logotheti's gaze than if he had not existed. No people in the world can remain perfectly motionless so long as Asiatics, perfectly absorbed in their own thoughts.
To the Greek's art-loving nature it was pure delight to watch her. Never, since he had first met Margaret Donne, had he seen any woman or young girl who appealed to his sense of beauty as Baraka did, though the impression she made on him was wholly different from that he received when Margaret was near.
The Primadonna was on a large scale, robust, magnificently vital, a Niké, even a young Hera; and sometimes, especially on the stage, she was almost insolently handsome, rather than beautiful like Lady Maud. Baraka was an Artemis, virginal, high-bred; delicately modelled for grace and speed rather than for reposeful beauty, for motion rather than for rest. It was true that the singer's walk was something to dream of and write verses about, but Baraka's swift-gliding step was that of the Maiden Huntress in the chase, her attitude in rest was the pose of a watchful Diana, ready to spring up at a sound or a breath, a figure almost boyish in its elastic vigour, and yet deeply feminine in meaning.
Baraka once more turned her head without lifting it from the back of the deck-chair.
'I am hungry and thirsty again,' she said gravely. 'I do not understand.'