"Can't Mr. So-and-so go with us?"
Oh, kind, quick wit! Three is a crowd, four is only twice two!
"Certainly," said Hugh, and to Ramsey added: "We'd better lead the way."
As they led she softly inquired: "Does he want to know something about the twins?"
What arrows were her questions, and how straight they struck home! Yet with that low voice for their bowstring they gave him comfort. Her forays into his confidence not only relieved the loneliness of his too secretive mind but often, as now, involved a sweet yielding of her confidence to him. Yet now a straight answer was quite impossible.
"He wants to know something about you," was the reply.
She let the palpable evasion pass. On the hurricane roof there was a new sight. The breeze was astern and moved so evenly with the boat as to enfold her in a calm. Looking up for the stars, one saw only the giant chimneys towering straight into the darkness and sending their smoke as straight and as far again beyond, spangled with two firefly swarms of sparks that fell at last in a perpetual, noiseless shower.
"Why do we go this way?" she asked, meaning forward around the skylight roof instead of across it.
"Because this way's longer."
"Humph!" was the soft response. Presently she added, "We get more fresh air this way," and called back to their two followers: "This is to avoid the sparks."