‘There’s a trifle more swell than there was, I fancy,’ said I to the lieutenant.
‘I think there is,’ he answered, looking over the sea as if he thought of something else.
‘What a confounded quiz Ned is!’ exclaimed Colledge. ‘He’s rather too fond of a laugh at other people’s expense. I think that sort of thing a mistake myself.’
‘He is a very handsome gentleman,’ said I.
‘Well, I’m mighty glad to have seen him,’ said Colledge. ‘He’s a dear good fellow, only—— I hope you’ve enjoyed the trip, Miss Temple?’
‘Thoroughly, thank you; it is a delightful change. How strange to think of that toy yonder as being our home for some months to come! It is like fancying one’s self as dwelling in a star, to see her floating out there in the blue haze, as though she were poised in the atmosphere.’
She fastened her eyes on the Indiaman as she spoke. One saw in this that she had a sailor’s observation for atmospheric effect. Star-like the ship looked in the distance—a dash of misty light in the blue haze, hovering, as it were, above the junction of sea and sky, where the blending of the elements was so dim and hot that you couldn’t tell where they met.
‘Isn’t it thickening up a trifle, somehow?’ said I to the lieutenant. ‘Look to the right of the wreck there—what is that appearance?’
‘What do you see?’ he exclaimed.
‘Why, to my fancy, it is as though there were a dust-storm miles away yonder.’