"To-night, probably. At least, he wired yesterday to say he'd be down to-night. But from what little I've seen of him, you can never be sure of Ember. He seems to lead the sedentary and uneventful life of a flea on a hot griddle."
"I shall be glad to see him," said the girl in what Whitaker thought a curious tone. "Please tell him, will you? Don't forget."
"If that's the way you feel about him, I shall be tempted to wire him not to come."
"Just what do you mean by that?" asked the woman sharply, a glint of indignation in her level, challenging stare.
"Merely that your tone sounded a bit vindictive. I thought possibly you might want to have it out with him, for the sin of permitting me to infest this neck o' the woods."
"Absurd!" she laughed, placated.
When finally they came to the end of the dock, he paused, considering the three-foot drop to the deck of the motor-boat with a dubious look that but half expressed his consternation. It would be practically impossible to lower himself without employing the painful member to an extent he didn't like to anticipate. He met the girl's inquiring glance with one wholly rueful.
"If it weren't low tide…" he explained, crest-fallen.
She laughed lightly. "But, since it is low tide, you'll have to let me help you again."
Cautiously lowering himself to a sitting position on the dock, feet overhanging the boat, he nodded. "'Fraid so. Sorry to be a nuisance."
"You're not a nuisance. You're merely masculine," the girl retorted, jumping lightly but surely to the cockpit.
She turned and offered him a hand, eyes dancing with gay malice.
Whitaker delayed, considering her gravely.
"Meaning – ?" he inquired pleasantly.
"Like all men you must turn to a woman in the end – however brave your strut."
"Oh, it's that way, is it? Thank you, but I fancy I can manage."
And with the aid of the clothes-prop he did manage to make the descent without her hand and without disaster.
"Pure blague!" the girl taunted.
"That's French for I-think-I'm-smart-don't-I – isn't it?" he inquired with an innocent stare. "If so, the answer is: I do."
Her lips and eyes were eloquent of laughter repressed.
"But now?" she argued, sure of triumph. "You've got to admit you couldn't do without me now!"
"Oh, I can manage a motor, if that's what you mean," he retorted serenely; "though I confess there are a few new kinks to this one that might puzzle me a bit at the start. That chain-and-cogwheel affair to turn the flywheel with, for instance – that's a new one. The last time I ran a marine motor in this country we had to break our backs and run chances of breaking our arms as well, turning up by hand."
The girl had gone forward, over the cabin roof, to cast off. She returned along the outboard, pushing the boat clear, then, jumping back into the cockpit, started the engine with a single, almost effortless turn of the crank which Whitaker had mentioned, and took the wheel as the boat swung droning away from the dock. Not until she had once or twice advanced the spark and made other minor adjustments, did she return attention to her passenger.
Then, in a casual voice, she inquired: "You've been out of the country for some time, I think you said?"
"Almost six years on the other side of the world – got back only last spring."
"What," she asked, eyes averted, spying out the channel – "what does one do on the other side of the world?"
"This one knocked about, mostly, for his health's sake. That is, I went away expecting to die before long, was disappointed, got well and strong and – took to drifting… I beg your pardon," he broke off hastily; "a civil answer to a civil question needn't necessarily be the history of one's life."
The girl put the wheel down slowly, swinging the boat upon a course direct to the landing-stage at Half-a-loaf Lodge.
"But surely you didn't waste six years simply 'drifting'?"
"Well, I did drift into a sort of business, after a bit – gold mining in a haphazard, happy-go-lucky fashion – did pretty well at it and came home to astonish the natives."
"Was it a success?"
"Rather," he replied dryly.
"I meant your plan to astonish the natives."
"So did I."
"You find things – New York – disappointing?" she analyzed his tone.
"I find it overpowering – and lonely. Nobody sent a brass band to greet me at the dock; and all the people I used to know are either married and devoted to brats, or divorced and devoted to bridge; and my game has gone off so badly in six years that I don't belong any more."
She smiled, shaping her scarlet lips deliciously. The soft, warm wind whipped stray strands of hair, like cords of gold, about her face. Her eyelids were half lowered against the intolerable splendour of the day. The waters of the bay, wind-blurred and dark, seemed a shield of sapphire fashioned by nature solely to set off in clear relief her ardent loveliness.
Whitaker, noting how swiftly the mainland shores were disclosing the finer details of their beauty, could have wished the bay ten times as wide.
XII
THE MOUSE-TRAP
Late in the afternoon of the same day, Ember, appearing suddenly in front of the bungalow, discovered Whitaker sitting up in state; a comfortable wicker chair supported his body and a canvas-seated camp stool one of his feet; which last was discreetly veiled in a dripping bath-towel. Otherwise he was fastidiously arrayed in white flannels and, by his seraphic smile and guileless expression, seemed abnormally at peace with his circumstances.
Halting, Ember surveyed the spectacle with mocking disfavour, as though he felt himself slightly at a disadvantage. He was, indeed, in a state that furnished an admirable contrast to that of the elegant if disabled idler. His face was scarcely whiter with the impalpable souvenirs of the road than was his slate-coloured mohair duster. The former, indeed, suffered by comparison, its personal coat of dust being deep-rutted with muddy paths of perspiration; beneath all lay the dull flush of flesh scorched by continuous exposure to sunlight and the swift rush of superheated air. None the less, his eyes, gleaming bright as through a mask, were not unamiable.
"Hel-lo!" he observed, beginning to draw off his gauntlets as he ascended the veranda steps and dropped into another wicker chair.
"How do you do?" returned Whitaker agreeably.
"I'm all right; but what the deuce's the matter with you?"
"Game leg, thanks. Twisted my ankle again, this morning. Sum Fat has been doctoring it with intense enthusiasm, horse liniment and chopped ice."
"That's the only proper treatment for sprains. Bad, is it?"
"Not very – not half as bad as I thought it would be at first. Coming on top of the other wrench made it extra painful for a while – that's all. By to-morrow morning I'll be skipping like the silly old hills in the Scriptures."
"Hope so; but you don't want to overdo the imitation, you know. Give nature a chance to make the cure complete. Otherwise – well, you must've had a pretty rotten stupid time of it, with that storm."
"Oh, not at all. I really enjoyed it," Whitaker protested.