Letting herself go, therefore, she was at luncheon bewildering in her beauty. Justin's mocking eyes grew tender as he watched her. Here was no pretty Beggar Maid for masculine condescension, but rather a little goddess to be put on a pedestal and worshiped.
Captain Stubbs and Miss Matthews, unconscious of the forces which were charging the air about them, ate their chowder and took their enjoyment placidly.
"A fish chowder," said the little captain, "never tastes so good in the house as it does out-of-doors, with the cod fresh caught, and with the smell of the sea for sauce."
"It is delicious," she said; "everything is--lovely."
"Isn't it?" said Justin. "There never was such a feast--there never was such a day----!"
Yet there had been many such days; there had been many such feasts. But not for them! It was the golden age of their existence. The moment of youth and joy, unmarred by disillusion.
The wind, rising, blew Miss Matthews' green veil into a long thin wisp which flapped toward the northwest.
The captain, noticing it, glanced over his shoulder.
"We'll have a storm before we know it," he said. "It's dark enough over there in the south----"
Above the horizon rose the clouds, black with wind; the waves began to murmur and run in, in long lines of white.
"There'll be no getting back now," said the captain.
Justin's eyes searched the land for shelter. Beyond the rocky wall was a hillside of hemlock, which formed part of the estate of a magnate from the West. Beyond the trees was a great house, shut up now, and in the hands of a caretaker. Nothing else seemed to offer refuge from the storm.
"What do you think, captain?" he asked. "Had we better try to make the house?"
"I've got my oilskins," the captain said. "I'll stay here, but perhaps you folks had better run in."
Miss Matthews protested. "I've lived too long on this coast to mind a storm. I'll wrap up in my rubber coat and let it rain. But we'd better get that child in somewhere; she's scared of storms."
"If there's going to be wind," she said, "I'm awfully afraid."
"Then we'll run for it," he told her; "up the hill to the house."
As he helped her climb the rocks, they took a last glance back at the stolid pair who didn't mind storms. Captain Stubbs in brilliantly yellow new oilskins and Miss Matthews in a sad-colored waterproof coat sat side by side with their backs against the beached boat.