Positively the contrary, an impulsive squeeze of fingers declared it; and they broke the link, neither of them sensibly hurt; though a leaf or two of the ingenuities, which were her thoughts, turned over in the phantasies of the lady; and the gentleman was taught to feel that a never so slightly lengthened compression of the hand female shoots within us both straight and far and round the corners.  There you have Nature, if you want her naked in her elements, for a text.  He loved his Nataly truly, even fervently, after the twenty years of union; he looked about at no other woman; it happened only that the touch of one, the chance warm touch, put to motion the blind forces of our mother so remarkably surcharging him.  But it was without kindling.  The lady, the much cooler person, did nurse a bit of flame.  She had a whimsical liking for the man who enjoyed simple things when commanding the luxuries; and it became a fascination, by extreme contrast, at the reminder of his adventurous enterprises in progress while he could so childishly enjoy.  Women who dance with the warrior-winner of battles, and hear him talk his ball-room trifles to amuse, have similarly a smell of gunpowder to intoxicate them.

For him, a turn on the deck brought him into new skies.  Nataly lay in the cabin.  She used to be where Lady Grace was lying.  A sort of pleadable, transparent, harmless hallucination of the renewal of old service induced him to refresh and settle the fair semi-slumberer’s pillow, and fix the tarpaulin over her silks and wraps; and bend his head to the soft mouth murmuring thanks.  The women who can dare the nuit blanche, and under stars; and have a taste for holiday larks after their thirtieth, are rare; they are precious.  Nataly nevertheless was approved for guarding her throat from the nightwind.  And a softer southerly breath never crossed Channel!  The very breeze he had wished for!  Luck was with him.

Nesta sat by the rails of the vessel beside her Louise.  Mr. Sowerby in passing, exchanged a description of printed agreement with her, upon the beauty of the night—­a good neutral topic for the encounter of the sexes not that he wanted it neutral; it furnished him with a vocabulary.  Once he perceptibly washed his hands of dutiful politeness, in addressing Mademoiselle de Seilles, likewise upon the beauty of the night; and the French lady, thinking—­too conclusively from the breath on the glass at the moment, as it is the Gallic habit—­that if her dear Nesta must espouse one of the uninteresting creatures called men in her native land, it might as well be this as another, agreed that the night was very beautiful.

‘He speaks grammatical French,’ Nesta commented on his achievement.  ’He contrives in his walking not to wet his boots,’ mademoiselle rejoined.