Jimmy was watching a long sea sweep by and break into a ridge of gleaming froth, when Miss Merril came out from the little companion and stood close beside him with the silvery light upon her. She had a soft wrap of some kind about her head and shoulders, and, though he could not at first see her face, the way the fleecy fabric hung emphasized her shapely figure.
"I wonder whether you would let me steer?" she asked.
For a moment or two Jimmy hesitated. The Sorata was carrying a good deal of sail, and running rather wildly, while he knew that a very small blunder at the tiller would bring her big main-boom crashing over, the result of which might be disaster. Still, there was something in the girl's manner which, for no reason that he could think of, impressed him with confidence. He felt that she would not have asked him for the helm merely out of caprice, or unless she could steer.
"Well," he said, remembering he was supposed to be a yacht-hand, "we will see what kind of a show you make at it, miss. Take hold, and try to keep her bowsprit on the island. It's the little black smear in the moonlight yonder."
The girl apparently had no difficulty in doing it, though for a while he crouched upon the side-deck with a brown hand close beside the ones she laid on the tiller. Then as, feeling reassured, he relaxed his grasp, she appeared to indicate her hands with a glance.
"They are really stronger than you seem to think," she said, "and I have sailed a yacht before."
Jimmy laughed. "I only thought they were very pretty."
The girl looked around at him a moment, without indignation, but with a grave inquiry in her eyes which Jimmy, who suddenly remembered the rôle he was expected to play, found curiously disconcerting.
"What made you say that?" she asked.
"I really don't know;" and Jimmy had sense enough not to make matters worse by admitting that he had said anything unusual. "It seemed to come to me naturally. Perhaps it was because they—are—pretty."