He had hurt her; but then, he had hurt her as a boy might. It was true, perhaps, Tom was not grown up. Ruth considered that she was—very much so!
There he was, daring to complain because his army career had ended so suddenly—wishing that he had remained in uniform. And how would his father and his sister have felt if he had done so!
“He’s a great, big booby!” Ruth whispered to herself. Then her smile came back—that wistful, caressing smile—and she shook her head. “But he’s Tom, and he always will be. Dear me! isn’t he ever going to grow up?”
So she hid her hurt and accepted the first partner thereafter who offered; but it was not Chess. Secretly she knew what the matter with Tom was. And she was too proud to let the ex-captain see that she cared. Nevertheless she was sorry that the party from down the river broke up as they did when the time to go home came.
She found herself in the Copley’s launch again, with Chess’ sisters and the members of the house party the Copleys were entertaining at their island. This dividing of the clans made it possible for Chess after letting the others out at the Copley dock, to take Ruth to the moving picture island alone.
It was a lovely, soft, moonlight night. The haze over the islands and the passages between could not be called a fog, but it was almost as shrouding as a fog. When Chess ran the launch outside into the main stream, where the current was broad and swift, the haze lay upon the rippling surface like a blanket.
They were going very swiftly here, for it was with the current. Suddenly Chess shut off the engine. The “plop” of the exhaust ceased. They drifted silently on the bosom of the St. Lawrence.
“I don’t see why I am treated so, Ruth,” Chess suddenly burst out. “Do you know, I’m awfully unhappy?”
“You poor boy!” said Ruth in her warm-hearted way. “I think you are over-sensitive.”
“Of course I am sensitive. I shall always be when I am—am—interested in any person and their treatment of me. It is congenital.”