"I wish you were going to be with us always. Shall you stay in America, Mr. Raleigh?"
"Only till the fall. But I will leave you at your father's door"----
And then Mr. Raleigh ceased suddenly, as if he had promised an impossibility.
"How long before we reach New York?" she asked.
"In about nine hours," he replied,--adding, in unconscious undertone, "if ever."
"What was that you said to yourself?" she asked, in a light and gayly inquisitive voice, as she looked around and over the ship. "Why, how many there are on deck! It is such a beautiful night, I suppose. Eh, Mr. Raleigh?"
"Are you not tired of your position?" he asked. "Sit down beside me here." And he took a seat.
"No, I would rather stand. Tell me what you said."
"Sit, then, to please me, Marguerite, and I will tell you what I said."
She hesitated a moment, standing before him, the hood of her capote, with its rich purple, dropping from the fluttering yellow hair that the moonlight deepened into gold, and the fire-opal clasp rising and falling with her breath, like an imprisoned flame. He touched her hand, still warm and soft, with his own, which was icy. She withdrew it, turned her eyes, whose fair, faint lustre, the pale forget-me-not blue, was darkened by the antagonistic light to an amethystine shadow, inquiringly upon him.