‘What do your “birds” do in weather like this?’ she said.

’Cling to their perches and wait patiently.  It’s the bad time with them when you don’t hear them chirp.’

‘Of course you foretold the gale.’

‘Oh, well, it did not require a shepherd or a skipper for that.’

‘Your grand gift will be useful to a yachtsman.’

’You like yachting.  When I have tried my new schooner in the Channel, she is at your command for as long as you and Lady Dunstane please.’

‘So you acknowledge that birds—­things of nature—­have their bad time?’

’They profit ultimately by the deluge and the wreck.  Nothing on earth is “tucked-up” in perpetuity.’

‘Except the dead.  But why should the schooner be at our command?’

‘I shall be in Ireland.’

He could not have said sweeter to her ears or more touching.

‘We shall hardly feel safe without the weatherwise on board.’

’You may count on my man Barnes; I have proved him.  He is up to his work even when he’s bilious:  only, in that case, occurring about once a fortnight, you must leave him to fight it out with the elements.’

‘I rather like men of action to have a temper.’

‘I can’t say much for a bilious temper.’

The weather to-day really seemed of that kind, she remarked.  He assented, in the shrug manner—­not to dissent:  she might say what she would.  He helped nowhere to a lead; and so quick are the changes of mood at such moments that she was now far from him under the failure of an effort to come near.  But thoughts of Emma pressed.

‘The name of the new schooner?  Her name is her picture to me.’

‘I wanted you to christen her.’

‘Launched without a name?’

‘I took a liberty.’

Needless to ask, but she did.  ‘With whom?’

‘I named her Diana.’

’May the Goddess of the silver bow and crescent protect her!  To me the name is ominous of mischance.’

‘I would commit my fortunes and life . . . !’ He checked his tongue, ejaculating:  ‘Omens!’

She had veered straight away from her romantic aspirations to the blunt extreme of thinking that a widow should be wooed in unornamented matter-of-fact, as she is wedded, with a ‘wilt thou,’ and ‘I will,’ and no decorative illusions.  Downright, for the unpoetic creature, if you please!  So she rejected the accompaniment of the silver Goddess and high seas for an introduction of the crisis.

’This would be a thunderer on our coasts.  I had a trial of my sailing powers in the Mediterranean.’

As she said it, her musings on him then, with the contract of her position toward him now, fierily brushed her cheeks; and she wished him the man to make one snatch at her poor lost small butterfly bit of freedom, so that she might suddenly feel in haven, at peace with her expectant Emma.  He could have seen the inviting consciousness, but he was absurdly watchful lest the flying sprays of border trees should strike her.  He mentioned his fear, and it became an excuse for her seeking protection of her veil.  ‘It is our natural guardian,’ she said.