"It's unheard of. It's shocking! Why, she isn't dressed to go anywhere. She isn't even properly dressed for—for bathing." Aunt Caroline for an instant was trying to put herself in the place of any fish who might chance to swim in the vicinity of Mary Wayne. "William Marshall, there ought to be some terrible way to punish you!"
Bill thought a way had been discovered; he had been punishing himself for the last two hours.
"You turn this yacht right around and go back to Larchmont and find them," she commanded.
In one respect, Bill found a slight measure of relief in his aunt's view of the situation. Evidently it did not occur to her that Mary and Pete might be drowned, and if such a possibility had not occurred to her very likely it was extremely remote.
"What's the sense of going back now?" he asked. "It'll be dark in half an hour."
"Nevertheless, you turn this boat around."
"Oh, they're all right by this time," he said carelessly.
"Well, if they are, it's not because of anything you've done, William Marshall." Aunt Caroline's eyes were beginning to blaze. "You've done your best to disgrace the girl. Oh, that poor child! I don't approve of her taking off her skirt, understand me; I never could bring myself to that. I never did it myself, when I was a young woman, and I wouldn't do it now. But that doesn't excuse you. It simply makes it worse that you should have gone away and left her. You did quarrel with her, of course; I can understand, now. You let that childish temper of yours govern you. Oh, that I should ever have had such a nephew. I'm ashamed of you!"
Bill felt that he was on the verge of disinheritance, but Aunt Caroline abruptly changed her line of thought.
"Thank goodness she's in charge of a responsible person!" she exclaimed.