She controlled her quick start before it could awaken the
sleeping child, but her eyes as they flashed upwards had the strained,
panic-stricken look of a hunted animal. She made an almost involuntary
movement of shrinking and the blood went out of her lips, but she spoke
no word.
A man in a navy-blue yachting-suit stood looking down at her with
blue-grey eyes that tried to be impersonal but failed at that slight
gesture of hers.
"You needn't be afraid of me, heaven knows," he said.
"I'm not," said Toby promptly, and flung him her old boyish smile. "I
wasn't expecting just you at that moment, that's all. Sit down and talk,
Captain--if that's what you've come for!"
Apparently it was. He lowered himself to the sand beside her. But at
once--as by irresistible habit--his eyes sought the horizon, and he sat
and contemplated it in utter silence.
Toby endured the situation for a few difficult seconds, then took brisk
command. "Why don't you have a smoke?" she said. "You'd find it a help."
He put his hand mechanically into his pocket and took out his
cigarette-case. His eyes came back out of space as he did so, and rested
upon the fair-haired child in the girl's arms.
"So you've come back to the old job!" he said.
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