“If I don’t?——”
“Oh, well, if you don’t, I’ve no doubt your husband will continue faithful and attached——”
“Oh!” Aureole dug her shapely heel—too high for sailing purposes—deep into the grass.
“And will keep you nicely sheltered from draughts”—he had struck his match; the flame wavered and went out. Again he attempted the process, with the same result.
“Thank the Lord!” with sudden buoyancy.
“What is it?”
“Wind!” And loudly summoning Oliver from the house, Stuart strode towards the boat.
Aureole could have wished the wind to have waited. She was preparing to announce in her most irrelevant manner: “Do you know ... when I touch a kitten, I suddenly feel as if I must kill it. Crush it to death. Just because it’s small and soft, and I love it.” This could not fail to be productive of interesting discussion about primitive feelings; and how we are really all savages at heart; and the things that cause us separately to feel most savage at heart. But you cannot shout forth statements of this description to a man who is climbing to the masthead, unfurling sails, swearing at ropes, and generally disporting himself in a thoroughly joyous and normal fashion.
The three set sail, and picked up Peter swishing her dinghy between armies of tall reeds. She came aboard, and under Stuart’s curt directions, sailed ‘Faustina’ in a light breeze, as far as the bridge. The feel of the tiller she had thoroughly grasped by now, but was still dependent on superior orders for manipulation of the mainsail. She resented the necessity for blind obedience; resented the inexperience standing between her and initiative; wished passionately to be master of that insolent canvas which now swelled adoring response to the lordship of wind.