Page:'Twixt land and sea - tales (IA twixtlandseatale00conr).pdf/222

 itwithout touching the earth. She closed her eyes and smiled in the dark, abandoning herself in a delightful giddiness, for an instant, to his encircling arm. But before he could be tempted to tighten his grasp she was out of it, a foot away from him and in full possession of herself.

That was the steady Freya. She was touched by the deep sigh which floated up to her from the white figure of Jasper, who did not stir.

“You are a mad kid,” she said tremulously. Then with a change of tone: “No one could carry me off. Not even you. I am not the sort of girl that gets carried off.” His white form seemed to shrink a little before the force of that assertion and she relented, “Isn't it enough for you to know that you havethat you have carried me away?” she added in a tender tone.

He murmured an endearing word, and she continued:

“I’ve promised youI’ve said I would comeand I shall come of my own free will. You shall wait for me on board, I shall get up the sideby myself, and walk up to you on the deck and say: ‘Here I am, kid.’ And thenand then I shall be carried off. But it will be no man who will carry me offit will be the brig, your brigour brig. I love the beauty!”

She heard an inarticulate sound, something like a moan wrung out by pain or delight, and glided away. There was that other man on the other verandah, that dark, surly Dutchman who could make trouble between Jasper and her father, bring about a quarrel, ugly words, and perhaps a physical collision. What a horrible situation! But, even putting aside that awful