It was not that he confused her by an awkward or obstinate silence; on the contrary, he answered her freely enough, in a gravely courteous way; but he seemed to attach too much importance to what she said—he seemed to be too grateful for this special attention she was bestowing upon him. And then again she dared hardly look up; for those black eyes burned so—in a timid, startled way—regarding her as if they would read something behind the mere prettiness of her face and complexion and hair, and apparently quite unconscious of their own power.
At last the ladies rose from the table; and Mary said—
"I suppose you gentlemen will be going out on the terrace to smoke? I wish you would let us come with you. I have not smelt a cigar for months—and it is so delicious in the evening air."
There was not very much objection. Chairs were brought out from the hall; Frank Meredyth perched himself on the stone parapet; the evening air became odorous, for there was hardly a breath of wind coming up from the bay. And as they sate and looked at the wide expanse of water—with only a chance remark breaking the silence from time to time—it may have occurred to one or other of them that the summer twilight that lay over land and sea was growing somewhat warmer in tone. It was Mary who discovered the cause: the golden moon was behind them—just over the low, birch-crowned hill; and the pale radiance lay on the still water in front of them, and on the long spur of land on the other side of the bay, where there were one or two crofters' cottages and fishermen's huts just above the shore. And while they were thus looking abroad over the mystic and sleeping world, a still stranger thing appeared—a more unusual thing for Loch-garra, that is to say—certain moving lights out beyond the point of the headland.
"Look, Mary!" Käthchen cried. "But that can't be the steamer—she is not due till next Thursday!"
Whatever the vessel was, she was obviously making in for the harbour; for presently they could see both port and starboard lights—a red star and a green star, coming slowly into the still, moonlit bay.
"It is the Consuelo," Donald Ross said to Mary. "It is Lord Mount-Grattan's yacht: she has come down from Loch Laxford."
They watched her slow progress—this big dark thing stealing almost noiselessly into the spectral grey world; they saw her gradually rounding; the green light disappeared; there was a sudden noise of the reversal of the screw; then a space of quiet again; and at last the roar of the anchor. The rare visitor had chosen her position for the night.
Almost directly thereafter young Ross of Heimra rose and took leave of his hostess—saying a few words of thanks for so pleasant an evening. The others did not go indoors, however; the still, balmy, moonlight night was too great a temptation. They remained on the terrace, looking at the big black steam-yacht that now lay motionless on the silver-grey water, and listening for the occasional distant sounds that came from it.
But presently they saw a small boat put off from the shore, rowed by two men, with a third figure in the stern.