"As truth," agreed Bertie. "You might retire, you know."
"I won't look," promised the widow, turning her back and peering over her shoulder. "But is he near my lamb now? Will he, can he save him?"
"Unfortunately, yes, mama," said Caroline.
Bertie and Henry leaned over the rail and watched the rescue, the long, easy strokes of the swimmer and the amusement on his face as a wave carried the struggling dog within reach and he grabbed the little woolly back.
"Saved!" cried Bertie, and turned just in time to grab Mrs. Armitage, who was also turning to see over the rail, by her fat shoulders and whirl her around again. "Safe, dear lady, but look the other way. Our hero is clothed in the seafoam and his own nobility, nothing else."
Henry was already disappearing down the companionway, the yacht was stopping and the crew standing by on the lower deck to lend assistance to rescued and rescuer.
The evening was warm and sultry. What little breeze there had been during the day had gone down with the sun, while the ocean heaved and moaned in long, green swells and ran softly whispering up the beach and splashed against the rocks with hardly a flake of foam. The sun, sinking behind the hills, cast long orange and pink streaks across the waves, and turned the small white clouds overhead a dainty, rosy mass of drifting color.
Bartlett and Billy strolled down the winding street of the little seaside town, out on the pier and stood idly waiting for the evening mailboat to arrive. Henrietta and the general were coming on the evening boat to spend the autumn in a small cottage which the general was pleased to call his "shooting-box." But Bartlett's pleasure at seeing Henrietta once more was mingled with worry and uneasiness over Billy and the Watermelon. He smoked thoughtfully and watched Billy warily, tenderly. She leaned against a pile and gazed over the vast unrest of the ocean to the distant horizon, with dreaming, unfathomable eyes. Bartlett knew of whom she was thinking, whom waiting for more and more eagerly every day now as August drew to a close and still he did not come. But this evening he had come, he was in the same neighborhood, drunk and probably hungry. When they met, as they must and that shortly, would he make a scene, become loud-mouthed, foul, abusive? It would be hard on Billy, and Bartlett wished vainly that he could spare her. But it was best that she should know, should understand fully and with a sudden quick cut it would be over with, the June madness when one is young and pretty and care-free. Billy would read her folly in the bleared eyes of a shiftless fool. Yet the boy was clever in getting out of a tight place, and Bartlett admired cleverness intensely, not being slow himself when it came to a hard bargain. The boy had gentle blood in his veins, too, more's the pity. It was simply a case of a good family gone to seed. Poor little Billy and her puppy love! A most unfortunate affair, the whole mistaken, unhappy business!
"There comes the Mary Gloucester," said Billy, breaking into his thoughts. She nodded toward the yacht, steaming majestically around the headland, pennons gaily waving and the bright awning a splash of color in the afterglow.
"The Mary Gloucester," chuckled Bartlett. "That woman hasn't the sense of her ugly little poodle dog."