Dick's eyes were turned to the sea. “Wreck! What nonsense! She's only reporting herself. Red rocket forward—there's a green light aft now, and two red rockets from the bridge.”
“What does that mean?”
“It's the signal of the Cross Keys Line running to Australia. I wonder which steamer it is.” The note of his voice had changed; he seemed to be talking to himself, and Maisie did not approve of it. The moonlight broke the haze for a moment, touching the black sides of a long steamer working down Channel. “Four masts and three funnels—she's in deep draught, too. That must be the Barralong, or the Bhutia. No, the Bhutia has a clipper bow. It's the Barralong, to Australia. She'll lift the Southern Cross in a week,—lucky old tub!—oh, lucky old tub!”
He stared intently, and moved up the slope of the fort to get a better view, but the mist on the sea thickened again, and the beating of the screws grew fainter. Maisie called to him a little angrily, and he returned, still keeping his eyes to seaward. “Have you ever seen the Southern Cross blazing right over your head?” he asked. “It's superb!”
“No,” she said shortly, “and I don't want to. If you think it's so lovely, why don't you go and see it yourself?”
She raised her face from the soft blackness of the marten skins about her throat, and her eyes shone like diamonds. The moonlight on the gray kangaroo fur turned it to frosted silver of the coldest.
“By Jove, Maisie, you look like a little heathen idol tucked up there.” The eyes showed that they did not appreciate the compliment. “I'm sorry,” he continued. “The Southern Cross isn't worth looking at unless someone helps you to see. That steamer's out of hearing.”
“Dick,” she said quietly, “suppose I were to come to you now,—be quiet a minute,—just as I am, and caring for you just as much as I do.”
“Not as a brother, though. You said you didn't—in the Park.”
“I never had a brother. Suppose I said, 'Take me to those places, and in time, perhaps, I might really care for you,' what would you do?”