"What do you mean?" she asked. Her lips parted as if to smile, but closed again in a neutral line that was neither smile nor frown, but might easily become either when she had heard his explanation.
"Like April—your face is like that. It's always changing. I like it always, but best when you smile, of course."
"I cannot smile at a speech like that," she said primly, and turned a serious face from him.
For five minutes he kept his eyes turned from her, and then looked to see if her April face had changed again. It had not, and a sigh escaped him.
At the sigh her face had become severe, but almost immediately he saw her lips twitch, close firmly together, then part in a laugh.
"There!" he cried triumphantly, and laughed with her.
"Oh, Tom, you're ridiculous!" she cried, and struggled against her laughter. But her face became serious again at once, and she added: "I do not like such speeches. They sound silly."
"All right," he replied, but not in the tone of one cast down.
Captain March's keen eyes, as he walked the deck, looking aloft, saw a slightly frayed spot in the maintopsail-halyard. Crossing the deck, he stopped by the side of his mate.
"Looks as if that halyard wouldn't stand much strain," he said. "Better look at it before long, Mr. Medbury." He pointed to the place as Medbury looked up.