“What?” asked the unsophisticated Charlie, who knew the phrase chiefly in connection with fish.
“A rise of screw, you know.”
“Oh, ah, yes—what a fool I am!” and Charlie disappeared beneath the waves.
When they were all on the bank, drying, Willie, encouraged by not being discouraged (save by Sutton’s silence) in his advances, ventured further, and asked in a joking tone:
“And aren’t you marked off yet? We’ve been expecting to hear of it for the last twelve months.”
“What do you mean’?”
“Why, you and Miss Bushell.”
Charlie struggled through his shirt, and then answered, with his first touch of distance:
“Nothing in it. People’ve got no business to gossip.”
“It’s damned impertinent,” observed Victor Sutton in slow and deliberate tones.