'You must steer,' he said to Damaris as he handled the sail.
She still said nothing, but she took the tiller-ropes. The little vessel glided easily through the peaceful waves; the wind, by a favouring chance, blew lightly from the north-west; it plunged with the grace and swiftness of a gannet into the silvery moonlight and the phosphorescent water.
Othmar gave his companion a little gold compass set at the back of a watch.
'You must guide our course,' he said to her. 'Bonaventure is as unknown to me as Japan to Marco Polo.'
'I shall make no mistake,' she said, finding her voice for the first time since she had seen him enter the boat. 'I have steered on Sundays from Villefranche home. But—but—I cannot bear to trouble you; it is not right.'
'You give me a charming moonlight sail,' said Othmar; 'and you will show me a terra incognita. I am immeasurably your debtor. But for you I should still be indoors in warm rooms with artificial light and an artificial laughter round me. One can have enough of that any evening.'
'If I did not like it I would not have any of it,' said Damaris, with her natural manner returning to her.
'I am not sure that I do not like it,' said Othmar; 'and, at all events, the person I most wish to please likes it. That must be sufficient for me.'
Damaris looked at him; she did not say anything. She was thinking of that day when she had gathered the daffodils, and the swallows had flown about her head, and the old woman Catherine had said: 'Holy Virgin, to think she was so unhappy!' Were they all unhappy, these great people, although they had everything on earth that they could want or wish?
Life outside the island seemed to be a terrible perplexity.