The clouds scattered quickly. The sun appeared again, low hung in the west and of a golden-red—prophesying that old weather-wise doggerel:
"Red at night
Sailors' delight."
The slate-colored seas outside the harbor still ran high, but they heaved now without breaking into foam. Their rumbling thunder against the breakwater was more subdued; no longer did the fierce insistence of the black squall mark the sound of the surf. The brief tempest had winged its way out to sea.
"Shall we start soon, Ralph?" asked Lorna, appearing from the cubby in the mannish apparel he had suggested.
"If you are not afraid that it is still too rough."
"Nonsense! I'm not afraid with you," she said with a frankness that secretly pleased him. She seemed quite unconscious that her words marked a comparison of Conway Degger and Ralph. She added: "The Fenique is a good boat."
"We'll try it, then," Ralph said cheerfully and without looking directly at her.
But she was worth looking at! With her glossy curls banded with one of Ralph's old neckties that she had found below, her dark and glowing face was more piquant than usual. The oilskins swathing her figure made it seem veritably boyish.
She, too, was barefooted, and her tiny, high-arched feet were as white as milk. Ralph looked at them shyly; but Lorna seemed quite unconscious of his scrutiny.
They did not speak of Conway Degger. Yet Ralph thought—it was a poignant flash in his mind—that the girl had been just as unconsciously frank with Degger as she was with him. Was she not too old now to play about with men, like the little tomboy she was wont to be?