"You know you'll have to marry me in the end. Why not now?" he persisted, doggedly. "We are simply wasting our youth, dear."
His tone had become so calamitous that the girl could not restrain a peal of very musical laughter.
"Am I so very funny?" he inquired, with dignity.
"You are, when you are so very tragic," she assured him.
He realized that his temper was merely a challenge to her teasing, and he wisely fell back into his customary attitude of unruffled insouciance.
"Drennie, you have held me off since we were children. I believe I first announced my intention of marrying you when you were twelve. That intention remains unaltered. More: it is unalterable and inevitable. My reasons for wanting to needn't be rehearsed. It would take too long. I regard you as possessed of an alert and remarkable mind—one worthy of companionship with my own." Despite the frivolous badinage of his words and the humorous smile of his lips, his eyes hinted at an underlying intensity. "With no desire to flatter or spoil you, I find your personal aspect pleasing enough to satisfy me. And then, while a man should avoid emotionalism, I am in love with you." He moved over to a place in the sternsheets, and his face became intensely earnest. He dropped his hand over hers as it lay on the tiller shaft. "God knows, dear," he exclaimed, "how much I love you!"
Her eyes, after holding his for a moment, fell to the hand which still imprisoned her own. She shook her head, not in anger, but with a manner of gentle denial, until he released her fingers and stepped back.
"You are a dear, Wilfred," she comforted, "and I couldn't manage to get on without you, but you aren't marriageable—at least, not yet."
"Why not?" he argued. "I've stood back and twirled my thumbs all through your début winter. I've been Patience without the comfort of a pedestal. Now, will you give me three minutes to show you that you are not acting fairly, or nicely at all?"
"Duck!" warned the girl, and once more they fell silent in the sheer physical delight of two healthy young animals, clean-blooded and sport- loving, as the tall jib swept down; the "high side" swept up, and the boat hung for an exhilarating moment on the verge of capsizing. As it righted itself again, like the craft of a daring airman banking the pylons, the girl gave him a bright nod. "Now, go ahead," she acceded, "you have three minutes to put yourself in nomination as the exemplar of your age and times."