The flush of sunset was dying when I came on deck. I saw the
captain slowly pacing the weather side of the poop with Miss Le Grand.
He seemed earnest in his talk and gestures. Enough western light still
lived to enable me to see faces, and I observed that Mrs. Burney,
standing to leeward of a skylight talking with a gentleman, would
glance at the couple with a satirical smile whenever they came abreast
of her.
But soon the night came down in darkness upon the deep; the wind blew
damp out of the dusk in a long moan over the rail, heeling the ship
yet by a couple of degrees; the captain sang out for the fore and
mizzen-royals to be clewed up and furled, and shortly afterwards went
below, first handing Miss Le Grand down the companion-way.
I guessed the game was up with the worthy man: he had met his fate and
taken to it with the meekness of a sheep. He might do worse, I
thought, as I started on a solitary stroll, so far as looks are
concerned; but what of her nature--her character? It was puzzling to
think of what sort of spirit it was that looked out of her wonderful
eyes; and she was not a kind of a girl that a man would care to leave
ashore; so much beauty, full of a subtle endevilment of some sort, as
it seemed to me, must needs demand the constant sentinelling of a
husband's presence.
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