v
Keith drew her forward slightly, until she came within the soft radiance of the cabin lights.
“I say, it is sporting of you to come!” he said. “Let’s have a look at you—do!”
They stood facing one another. Keith saw Jenny, tall and pale, looking thin in her shabby dress, but indescribably attractive and beautiful even in her new shyness. And Jenny saw the man she loved: her eyes were veiled, but they were unfathomably those of one deeply in love. She did not know how to hide the emotions with which she was so painfully struggling. Pride and joy in him; shyness and a sort of dread; hunger and reserve—Keith might have read them all, so plainly were they written. Yet her first words were wounded and defiant.
“The man ... that man.... He knew I was coming,” she said, in a voice of reproach. “You were pretty sure I should come, you know.”
Keith said quietly:
“I hoped you would.” And then he lowered his eyes. She was disarmed, and they both knew.
Keith Redington was nearly six feet in height. He was thin, and even bony; but he was very toughly and strongly built, and his face was as clean and brown as that of any healthy man who travels far by sea. He was less dark than Jenny, and his hair was almost auburn, so rich a chestnut was it. His eyes were blue and heavily lashed; his hands were long and brown, with small freckles between the knuckles. He stood with incomparable ease, his hands and arms always ready, but in perfect repose. His lips, for he was clean-shaven, were keen and firm. His glance was fearless. As the phrase is, he looked every inch a sailor, born to challenge the winds and the waters. To Jenny, who knew only those men who show at once what they think or feel, his greater breeding made Keith appear inscrutable, as if he had belonged to a superior race. She could only smile at him, with parted lips, not at all the baffling lady of the mirror, or the contemptuous younger sister, or the daring franctireur of her little home at Kennington Park. Jenny Blanchard she remained, but the simple, eager Jenny to whom these other Jennies were but imperious moods.
“Well, I’ve come,” she said. “But you needn’t have been so sure.”
Keith gave an irrepressible grin. He motioned her to the table, shaking his head at her tone.