‘I didn’t mean drowning, dearest. I meant a cold in the head.’
‘A cold in the head!’
He nodded gravely.
‘I don’t see how it can be avoided. You know how chilly it gets these late summer nights. It will be a long time before we can get away.’
She laughed a shrill, unnatural laugh.
‘You are talking like this to keep my courage up. You know in your heart that there is no hope for us. Nothing can save us now. The water will come creeping—creeping—’
‘Let it creep! It can’t get past that rock there.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It can’t. The tide doesn’t come up any farther. I know, because I was caught here last week.’
For a moment she looked at him without speaking. Then she uttered a cry in which relief, surprise, and indignation were so nicely blended that it would have been impossible to say which predominated.
He was eyeing the approaching waters with an indulgent smile.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she cried.
‘I did tell you.’
‘You know what I mean. Why did you let me go on thinking we were in danger, when—’
‘We
‘Isch!’
‘There! You’re sneezing already.’
‘I am not sneezing. That was an exclamation of disgust.’
‘It sounded like a sneeze. It must have been, for you’ve every reason to sneeze, but why you should utter exclamations of disgust I cannot imagine.’
‘I’m disgusted with you—with your meanness. You deliberately tricked me into saying—’
‘Saying—’
She was silent.
‘What you said was that you loved me with all your heart and soul. You can’t get away from that, and it’s good enough for me.’
‘Well, it’s not true any longer.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Wilton, comfortably; ‘bless it.’
‘It is not. I’m going right away now, and I shall never speak to you again.’
She moved away from him, and prepared to sit down.
‘There’s a jelly-fish just where you’re going to sit,’ said Wilton.
‘I don’t care.’
‘It will. I speak from experience, as one on whom you have sat so often.’
‘I’m not amused.’
‘Have patience. I can be funnier than that.’
‘Please don’t talk to me.’
‘Very well.’
She seated herself with her back to him. Dignity demanded reprisals, so he seated himself with his back to her; and the futile ocean raged towards them, and the wind grew chillier every minute.
Time passed. Darkness fell. The little bay became a black cavern, dotted here and there with white, where the breeze whipped the surface of the water.
Wilton sighed. It was lonely sitting there all by himself. How much jollier it would have been if—
A hand touched his shoulder, and a voice spoke—meekly.
‘Jack, dear, it—it’s awfully cold. Don’t you think if we were to—snuggle up—’
He reached out and folded her in an embrace which would have aroused the professional enthusiasm of Hackenschmidt and drawn guttural congratulations from Zbysco. She creaked, but did not crack, beneath the strain.
‘That’s much nicer,’ she said, softly. ‘Jack, I don’t think the tide’s started even to think of going down yet.’
‘I hope not,’ said Wilton.
THE MIXER
I.
Looking back, I always consider that my career as a dog proper really started when I was bought for the sum of half a crown by the Shy Man. That event marked the end of my puppyhood. The knowledge that I was worth actual
