“Haven’t you enjoyed to-day, then?” he inquired, responding to her question with another.
“I’ve loved it,” she answered simply. “I think if I’d been a man I should have chosen to be a sailor.”
“Then it’s a good thing heaven saw to it that you were a woman. The world couldn’t have done without its Wielitzska.”
“Oh, I don’t know”—half-indifferently, half-wistfully. “It’s astonishing how little necessary anyone really is in this world. If I were drowned this afternoon the Imperial management would soon find someone to take my place.”
“But your friends wouldn’t,” he said quietly.
Magda laughed a little uncertainly.
“Well, I won’t suggest we put them to the test, so please take me home safely.”
As she spoke a big drop of rain splashed down on to her hand. Then another and another. Simultaneously she and Michael glanced upwards to the sky overhead, startlingly transformed from an arch of quivering blue into a monotonous expanse of grey, across which came sweeping drifts of black cloud, heavy with storm.
“By Jove! We’re in for it!” muttered Quarrington.
His voice held a sudden gravity. He knew the danger of those unexpected squalls which trap the unwary in the Solent, and inwardly he cursed himself for not having observed the swift alteration in the weather.