“Do I, dear? Then it is because I am happy.”
Agatha was quite right, thought Arthur, she did look beautiful, there was such depth and rest in her clear eyes, such a wealth of happy triumph written on her features. She might have sat that morning as a study of the “Venus Victrix.” Her talk, too, was as bright as herself. She laughed and shone and sparkled like the rain-drops on the bamboo sprays that rocked in the sunshine, and whenever she addressed herself to Arthur, which was often enough, every sentence seemed wrapped in tender meaning. Her whole life went out towards him, a palpable thing; she waited on his words and basked in his smile. Mildred Carr did nothing by halves.
Arthur was the least cheerful of the three, though at times he tried his best to join in Mildred’s merriment. Any one who knew him well could have told that he was suffering from one of his fits of constitutional melancholy, and a physiognomist, looking at the somewhat dreamy eyes and pensive face, would probably have added that he neither was nor ever would be an entirely happy man.
By degrees, however, he seemed to get the better of his thoughts, whatever they might be.
“Now, Arthur, if you are quite awake,” began, or rather went on, Mildred, “perhaps you will come to the window. I have something to show you.”
“Here I am at your service; what may it be?”
“Good. Now look; do you see that little vessel in the bay beneath there to the right of Leeuw Rock?”
“Yes, and uncommonly pretty she is; what of her?”
“What of her? Why, she is my yacht.”
“Your yacht?”