"Leave that to other girls," he suggested. "You don't need it."
"You're a base flatterer," she chided.
Drew reluctantly gathered up her wraps, and, with a last lingering look at the glory of the sea and sky, they went below.
It was not really necessary for him to take her hand as they parted for the night, but he did so.
"Good night, Ruth," he said softly.
"Good night—Allen," she answered in a low voice.
His eyes held hers for a moment, and then she vanished.
It was the happiest night that Drew had ever known. He had opened his heart to her—not so far as he would have liked and dared, but as far as she had permitted him. And in the soft beauty of her eyes he thought that he had detected the beginnings of what he wanted to find there. And she had permitted him to call her "Ruth." And she had called him "Allen." How musical the name sounded, coming from her lips!
It was fortunate that he had the memory of that night to comfort him in the days that followed.
Ruth was more distracting than ever the next morning when she appeared, fresh and radiant, at the breakfast table. But in some impalpable way she seemed to have withdrawn within herself. Perhaps she felt that she had let herself go too far in the glamour of the moonlight.