“Oh, you idiot,” he groaned within his heart, “you utter and double-dyed idiot.”
He looked despairingly down at the water, and from it to the moonlit sky. Fate, so he mused ruefully, writes certain sentences in our life-book, truly; but it behoves each one of us to fill in between the lines. And he had filled in—nothing.
An hour or so later he descended dejectedly to his cabin.
CHAPTER IV
THE LADY OF THE BLUE BOOK
He saw her at breakfast the next morning; and again, later, sitting on a deck-chair, with a book.
Once more he cursed his folly of the previous evening. A word or two then, no matter how trivial their utterance, and the barriers of convention would have been passed. Even should Fate throw a like opportunity in his path again, it was entirely improbable that she would choose the same hour. She is ever chary of exact repetitions. And, if his stammering tongue failed in speech with the soft darkness to cover its shyness, how was it likely it would find utterance in the broad light of day? The Moment—he spelled it with a capital—had passed, and would never again recur. Therefore he seated himself on his own deck-chair, some twenty paces from her, and began to fill his pipe, gloomily enough. Yet, in spite of gloom, he watched her,—surreptitiously of course. There was no ill-bred staring in his survey.
She was again dressed in black, but this time the lace ruffles had given place to soft white muslin cuffs and collar. Her dark hair was covered by a broad-brimmed black hat. She was leaning back in her chair as she read, the book lying on her lap. Suddenly the gravity of her face relaxed. A smile rippled across it like a little breeze across the surface of some lake. The smile broke into silent laughter. Antony found himself smiling in response.