It would have been sufficient to fill an artist's soul with rapture just to lie idly at full length on one of those superb couches, living in the exquisite loveliness of Dame Nature, and Carlita stood gazing about her in a sort of rapt wonder, her eyes wandering slowly from the superbly appointed deck—with Mrs. Chalmers sitting over next the starboard rail, with old Colonel Washburn bending over her in a cavalier devotion, and Jessica to the port, with Dudley Maltby sitting facing her—to the water, and on down the bay out to where a white line of sand stretched alluringly, sparkling like myriads of scintillating diamonds.
An absolute silence seemed to infold the scene, broken only by the gentle caress of the water upon the sides of the tiny ship—a silence that made it all appear like that mythical experience of Ulysses when he listened to the seductive voices of the sirens. Carlita clasped her hands in breathless delight.
"I will be happy today," she murmured, a trifle hysterically. "I will put all past and future away, and be happy for this one little day as if there had been no yesterday and would be no tomorrow. This day shall encompass time, and I will feel the full joy of living once!"
As if in answer to her, a voice spoke in her ear:
"Come and let me make you comfortable. See, I have placed a couch for you where the sun will shine upon you, but will not be in your eyes, and I have brought some books to read to you. Will you come?"
She turned at once and obeyed, half defying her own sensitiveness in her efforts to yield to that determination to be happy.
It was a broad, long couch, upholstered luxuriously in a magnificent dark green that contrasted perfectly with the tones of the sea. She threw herself upon it, allowing her delight almost passionate play in her features, and permitted Leith to pile pillows under and about her in gorgeous profusion; then, when she looked as comfortable as even he could desire, he drew up to her side a very low chair and took a volume out of his pocket.
"Are you fond of Tennyson?" he asked. "If you have a favorite, name it. I believe most of them are in the library."
"Is it Tennyson you have there?"
"Yes."