'I doubt the "excitement" being of the technical kind, unless the water had a very sudden sobering effect.'
'Indeed! Well, considering that you were in your shirt-sleeves, their not perceiving that we weren't in their style was not so wonderful. So Felix says we ought to have cleared them. Ay, I do remember the swinging round now.'
'An oar must have missed the stroke, and brought her stern foul of the other.'
'He must have seen who it was,' said Lance.
'Yes, but as the point is to exonerate these fellows, there seems no need to drive it close home among ourselves.'
'No, she need never know exactly what she has done,' said Lance.
'I did not say she never should,' returned Clement; 'but the public need not. In fact, we have nothing to say. Felix, in the stern, may have seen, but I did not.'
'And Charlie Audley?'
'If he knows no more positively than we do, you may be sure he will not draw inferences. I wonder he has not been here yet, by-the-by.'
'You don't mean to forewarn him?'