He addressed himself to Natalie; plainly eager to make himself agreeable to the young lady—­and plainly unsuccessful in producing any impression on her.  She made a civil answer; and looked at her tea-cup, instead of looking at Richard Turlington.

“You might fancy yourself on shore at this moment,” said Launce.  “The vessel is as steady as a house, and the swing-table we are eating our breakfast on is as even as your dining-room table at home.”

He too addressed himself to Natalie, but without betraying the anxiety to please her which had been shown by the other.  For all that, he diverted the girl’s attention from her tea-cup; and his idea instantly awakened a responsive idea in Natalie’s mind.

“It will be so strange on shore,” she said, “to find myself in a room that never turns on one side, and to sit at a table that never tilts down to my knees at one time, or rises up to my chin at another.  How I shall miss the wash of the water at my ear, and the ring of the bell on deck when I am awake at night on land!  No interest there in how the wind blows, or how the sails are set.  No asking your way of the sun, when you are lost, with a little brass instrument and a morsel of pencil and paper.  No delightful wandering wherever the wind takes you, without the worry of planning beforehand where you are to go.  Oh how I shall miss the dear, changeable, inconstant sea!  And how sorry I am I’m not a man and a sailor!”

This to the guest admitted on board on sufferance, and not one word of it addressed, even by chance, to the owner of the yacht!

Richard Turlington’s heavy eyebrows contracted with an unmistakable expression of pain.

“If this calm weather holds,” he went on, addressing himself to Sir Joseph, “I am afraid, Graybrooke, I shall not be able to bring you back to the port we sailed from by the end of the week.”

“Whenever you like, Richard,” answered the old gentleman, resignedly.  “Any time will do for me.”

“Any time within reasonable limits, Joseph,” said Miss Lavinia, evidently feeling that her brother was conceding too much.  She spoke with Sir Joseph’s amiable smile and Sir Joseph’s softly-pitched voice.  Two twin babies could hardly have been more like one another.

While these few words were being exchanged among the elders, a private communication was in course of progress between the two young people under the cabin table.  Natalie’s smartly-slippered foot felt its way cautiously inch by inch over the carpet till it touched Launce’s boot.  Launce, devouring his breakfast, instantly looked up from his plate, and then, at a second touch from Natalie, looked down again in a violent hurry.  After pausing to make sure that she was not noticed, Natalie took up her knife.  Under a perfectly-acted pretense of toying with it absently, in the character of a young lady absorbed in thought, she began dividing a morsel of ham left on the edge of her plate, into six tiny pieces.  Launce’s eye looked in sidelong expectation at the divided and subdivided ham.  He was evidently waiting to see the collection of morsels put to some telegraphic use, previously determined on between his neighbor and himself.