It was clear to Nasmyth that she had been observing him, but he did not realize that she was then watching him with keen, half-covert curiosity. He was certainly a well-favoured man, and though his conversation and demeanour did not differ greatly from those of other young men she was accustomed to; there was also something about him which she vaguely recognized as setting him apart from the rest. He was a little more quiet than most of them, and there were a certain steadiness in his eyes, and a faint hardness in the lines of his face, which roused her interest. He had been up against it, as they say in that country, which is a thing that usually leaves its mark upon a man. It endues him with control, and, above all, with comprehension.
“Oh,” he said, “a man not burdened with money is now and then forced to wander. He naturally picks up a few impressions here and there. I wonder if you find it chilly sitting here?”
The girl rose, with a little laugh. “That,” she said, 144 “was evidently meant to afford me an opportunity. I think I should like to go down to the Inlet.”
Nasmyth, who understood this as an invitation, went with her, and, five minutes later, they strolled out upon the crown of the bluff, down the side of which a little path wound precipitously. Nasmyth held his hand out at the head of it, and they went down together cautiously, until they stood on the smooth white shingle close by where the little steamer lay. The girl looked about her with a smile of appreciation.
A lane of dusky water, that heaved languidly upon the pebbles, ran inland past them under the dark rock’s side, and it was very still in the shadow of the climbing firs. On the further shore a flood of silvery radiance, against which the dark branches cut black as ebony, streamed down into the rift, and beyond the rocky gateway there was brilliant moonlight on the smooth heave of sea. The girl glanced at it longingly, and then, though she said nothing, her eyes rested on a little beautifully modelled cedar canoe that lay close by. In another moment Nasmyth had laid his hands on it, and she noticed how easily he ran it down the beach, as she had noticed how steady of foot he was when she held fast to his hand as they came down the bluff. With a curious little smile that she remembered afterwards, he glanced towards the shadowy rocks which shut in the entrance to the Inlet.
“Shall we go and see what there is out yonder beyond those gates?” he asked.
“Ah,” replied the girl, “what could there be? Aren’t you taking an unfair advantage in appealing to our curiosity?”
Nasmyth made a whimsical gesture as he answered her, for he saw that she could be fanciful, too. “Unsubstantial moonlight, glamour, mystery––perhaps other things as well,” he said. “If you are curious, why shouldn’t we go and see?”
She made no demur, and helping her into the canoe, he thrust the light craft off, and, with a sturdy stroke of the paddle, drove it out into the Inlet. It was a thing he was used to, for he had painfully driven ruder craft of that kind up wildly-frothing rivers, and the girl noticed the powerful swing of his shoulders and the rhythmic splash of his paddle, though there were other things that had their effect on her––the languid lapping of the brine on shingle, and the gurgle round the canoe, that seemed to be sliding out towards the moonlight through a world of unsubstantial shadow. She admitted that the man interested her. He had a quick wit and a whimsical fancy that appealed to her, but he had also hard, workman’s hands, and he managed the canoe as she imagined one who had undertaken such things professionally would have done.