"Over there," he answered. She looked, and for the first time saw
the great shimmering sails gleaming like silver under the moonlight.
She moved towards it, and he followed, noticing without surprise
that the heather seemed to make no sign of yielding to the pressure
of her white feet.
She halted a little away from it, and he came and stood beside her.
Even to Commander Raffleton himself it looked as if the great wings
were quivering, like the outstretched pinions of a bird preening
itself before flight.
"Is it alive?" she asked.
"Not till I whisper to it," he answered. He was losing a little of
his fear of her. She turned to him.
"Shall we go?" she asked.
He stared at her. She was quite serious, that was evident. She was
to put her hand in his and go away with him. It was all settled.
That is why he had come. To her it did not matter where. That was
his affair. But where he went she was to go. That was quite
clearly the programme in her mind.
To his credit, let it be recorded, he did make an effort. Against
all the forces of nature, against his twenty-three years and the red
blood pulsing in his veins, against the fumes of the midsummer
moonlight encompassing him and the voices of the stars, against the
demons of poetry and romance and mystery chanting their witches'
music in his ears, against the marvel and the glory of her as she
stood beside him, clothed in the purple of the night, Flight
Commander Raffleton fought the good fight for common sense.
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