And the lieutenant, perceiving that smile, was mollified.  It never entered his head that his outward appearance, a naval officer, in uniform, could appear ridiculous to that girl of no position—­the daughter of old Nielsen.  The recollection of her arms round Jasper’s neck still irritated and excited him.  “The hussy!” he thought.  “Smiling—­eh?  That’s how you are amusing yourself.  Fooling your father finely, aren’t you?  You have a taste for that sort of fun—­have you?  Well, we shall see—­” He did not alter his position, but on his pursed-up lips there also appeared a smile of surly and ill-omened amusement, while his eyes returned to the contemplation of his boots.

Freya felt hot with indignation.  She sat radiantly fair in the lamplight, her strong, well-shaped hands lying one on top of the other in her lap. . .  “Odious creature,” she thought.  Her face coloured with sudden anger.  “You have scared my maid out of her senses,” she said aloud.  “What possessed you?”

He was thinking so deeply of her that the sound of her voice, pronouncing these unexpected words, startled him extremely.  He jerked up his head and looked so bewildered that Freya insisted impatiently: 

“I mean Antonia.  You have bruised her arm.  What did you do it for?”

“Do you want to quarrel with me?” he asked thickly, with a sort of amazement.  He blinked like an owl.  He was funny.  Freya, like all women, had a keen sense of the ridiculous in outward appearance.

“Well, no; I don’t think I do.”  She could not help herself.  She laughed outright, a clear, nervous laugh in which Heemskirk joined suddenly with a harsh “Ha, ha, ha!”

Voices and footsteps were heard in the passage, and Jasper, with old Nelson, came out.  Old Nelson looked at his daughter approvingly, for he liked the lieutenant to be kept in good humour.  And he also joined sympathetically in the laugh.  “Now, lieutenant, we shall have some dinner,” he said, rubbing his hands cheerily.  Jasper had gone straight to the balustrade.  The sky was full of stars, and in the blue velvety night the cove below had a denser blackness, in which the riding-lights of the brig and of the gunboat glimmered redly, like suspended sparks.  “Next time this riding-light glimmers down there, I’ll be waiting for her on the quarter-deck to come and say ‘Here I am,’” Jasper thought; and his heart seemed to grow bigger in his chest, dilated by an oppressive happiness that nearly wrung out a cry from him.  There was no wind.  Not a leaf below him stirred, and even the sea was but a still uncomplaining shadow.  Far away on the unclouded sky the pale lightning, the heat-lightning of the tropics, played tremulously amongst the low stars in short, faint, mysteriously consecutive flashes, like incomprehensible signals from some distant planet.

The dinner passed off quietly.  Freya sat facing her father, calm but pale.  Heemskirk affected to talk only to old Nelson.  Jasper’s behaviour was exemplary.  He kept his eyes under control, basking in the sense of Freya’s nearness, as people bask in the sun without looking up to heaven.  And very soon after dinner was over, mindful of his instructions, he declared that it was time for him to go on board his ship.