“I’m not sure that you will not be better here than spending time in society—­that is, if you have no pressing ambition, as most men have.  I mean ambition for personal success and praise, and position.  My brother always spoke of Parliament, and I suppose you would aim at the Royal Society.  Girls have little scope, but I should imagine you must suffer.”

“Maisie, you’re the dearest old preacher in the world.  Why don’t you persuade Mr. Ferrier to be a great man on shore instead of coming out here to be bruised, and drowned, and sent home, and all that kind of thing?”

Then Miss Lena thoughtfully added, as in soliloquy—­

“But he might come to be like old Professor Blabbs who makes a noise with his soup, or Sir James Brennan with the ounce of snuff round his studs.  No.  Perhaps Maisie’s right.”  “I have plenty of ambition—­I am burning with it, and I have an intuition that this is one of the widest and finest fields in the world—­for impersonal ambition, that is, ambition above money, and so forth.”

Then Ferrier, with a touch of pride quite unusual in him, said—­

“I’m not persuaded that I’ve done so badly in the ambitious way up to now.  This should be a fair change.”

Then they stopped and watched the shadowy vessels stealing away into the luminous gloom.  I hope they loved the sight; the thought of it makes all Beethoven sing over my nerves.  The water was lightly crisped, and every large sigh of the low wind seemed to blow a sheet of diamonds over the quivering path of the moon; the light clouds were fleeting, fleeting; the shadows were fleeting, fleeting; and, ah me! the hours of youth were fleeting, fleeting to the gulf.  The girls never spoke; but Ferrier thought of one of them that her fateful silence was more full of eloquence than any spoken words could be.  She seemed to draw solemn music from every nerve of his body.  Oh, droll John Blair!  Did those placid, good blue eyes see anything?  The deep contralto note of Marion Dearsley’s voice broke the entranced silence.

“It seems a waste of one’s chances to leave this, but we must go.  Lena and I must trouble you to help us, though I’m sure I don’t know why.  I shall never forget that sight.”

“Nor I,” thought Ferrier; but he was not an accomplished lady’s man, so he did not speak his thought.

Then Lewis and Mr. Blair fell into one of their desultory conversations, with Tom as explanatory chorus, and Fullerton brooding alongside in profound reverie.  The breeze was enough to send the schooner past the trawlers, but her foresail had been put against her so that she kept line.  An hour before the trawls were hauled Ferrier suggested that the yacht should be allowed to sail, just to see if a case could be picked up.  Said the enthusiast Tom—­

“I’ll go with you.  I can step into the boat now, but when you have sixteen stone to drop on the top of a tholepin, I assure you it makes you cautious.  In my wild days I should have used terms, sir—­oh, distressing! oh, harrowing!  To-night I’m ready for a thingumbob on ’the blue, the fresh, the ever free.’  Ah! entrancing!  Oh-h-h! bewitching!”