"Not so shy—not so shy," murmured Deep-water Peter, as if she had been a wild filly coming up to his hand.
"She cannot hear you," Rackby interposed. The gleam of triumph in his eye was plain.
"Neither speak nor hear."
Peter Loud turned toward the girl again—and this time her blue eye met his, and a spark was struck, not dying out instantly, such a spark as might linger on the surface of a flint struck by steel.
Was it a certain trick of movement, or only the quickened current of his blood that made Deep-water Peter know the truth?
"This is strange," he said.
That wind-blown voice of his, with its deepwater melodiousness, had dropped to a whisper.
"Even providential," the harbor master returned, and his eye glittered.
Peter would have said something to that, but Rackby, with a stern hand at his daughter's elbow, passed out of hearing.