‘I am sorry for your disappointment,’ he continued, glancing into her face. Their eyes having met, became, as it were, mutually locked together, and the single instant only which good breeding allows as the length of such a look, became trebled: a clear penetrating ray of intelligence had shot from each into each, giving birth to one of those unaccountable sensations which carry home to the heart before the hand has been touched or the merest compliment passed, by something stronger than mathematical proof, the conviction, ‘A tie has begun to unite us.’
Both faces also unconsciously stated that their owners had been much in each other’s thoughts of late. Owen had talked to the young architect of his sister as freely as to Cytherea of the young architect.
A conversation began, which was none the less interesting to the parties engaged because it consisted only of the most trivial and commonplace remarks. Then the band of harps and violins struck up a lively melody, and the deck was cleared for dancing; the sun dipping beneath the horizon during the proceeding, and the moon showing herself at their stern. The sea was so calm, that the soft hiss produced by the bursting of the innumerable bubbles of foam behind the paddles could be distinctly heard. The passengers who did not dance, including Cytherea and Springrove, lapsed into silence, leaning against the paddle-boxes, or standing aloof—noticing the trembling of the deck to the steps of the dance—watching the waves from the paddles as they slid thinly and easily under each other’s edges.
Night had quite closed in by the time they reached Budmouth harbour, sparkling with its white, red, and green lights in opposition to the shimmering path of the moon’s reflection on the other side, which reached away to the horizon till the flecked ripples reduced themselves to sparkles as fine as gold dust.
‘I will walk to the station and find out the exact time the train arrives,’ said Springrove, rather eagerly, when they had landed.
She thanked him much.
‘Perhaps we might walk together,’ he suggested hesitatingly. She looked as if she did not quite know, and he settled the question by showing the way.
They found, on arriving there, that on the first day of that month the particular train selected for Graye’s return had ceased to stop at Anglebury station.
‘I am very sorry I misled him,’ said Springrove.
‘O, I am not alarmed at all,’ replied Cytherea.