Madge drank the tea obediently, gazing a little less scornfully at the girl who was serving her, her face pale with fright and sympathy. The other girl stood apart at a little distance with a young man. They were both staring at the wet and shivering girls with poorly concealed amusement.
“We are awfully sorry to give you so much trouble,” said Madge to the girl with the tea. She was trying to control her feelings when she caught sight of the owner of the small yacht and his friend and her temper got the better of her.
“I am sorry,” she repeated, “that we are giving you trouble. But, really, your motor launch had no right to bear down on our boat without blowing its whistle or giving the faintest sign of its approach. It put the whole responsibility of getting out of the way on us.”
Madge was sitting beside the old captain. Her direct mode of attack showed that she was feeling more like herself.
“What the young lady says is true,” declared Captain Jules with emphasis. “I doubt if you have the faintest legal right to navigate a boat in these waters. If I hadn’t happened to walk along down the shore of the bay after these young ladies left me two of them would have been drowned. I’ll have to see to it that you keep off this bay if you do any more such mischief as you did this morning.”
The young man in a handsome yachting suit worthy of an admiral in the United States Navy frowned angrily at Madge and her champion.
“I say it wasn’t my fault that I ran into your little paper boat,” he protested angrily. “I gave you plenty of time to get out of my way, but you girls pulled so slowly that we did slide into you. Still, if you will admit that it was your fault and not mine, I will have your old skiff mended, if she isn’t too much used up and you can get somebody to tow her back to land for you. I can’t; I have enough to carry as it is.”
The girl standing beside the young man giggled hysterically. Madge decided that she had heard her high, shrill notes before. Phyllis, Lillian and Eleanor were furiously angry at the young man’s retort to Madge and Captain Jules, but they bit their lips and said nothing. They were on his yacht, although they were enforced passengers; it was better not to express their feelings.
But Madge was in a white heat of passion over the young man’s boorish retort.
“It was not our fault in the least that we were run down,” she said in a low, evenly pitched voice. “We are not willing to take the least bit of the blame. You not only ran into our little boat and sunk her, but you did not take the least trouble to come to our aid when you had not the faintest knowledge whether any one of us could swim. Men in the part of the world where I come from don’t do things of that kind. Put your boat back and tow our rowboat to land,” ordered Madge imperiously. “We certainly will not allow you to have it mended. Neither my friends nor I wish to accept any kind of recompense from a man who is a coward!”