"Just why you should be such a heart-breaker," he continued, examining her with a critical eye, "is something I don't quite get. You're a good-enough looker, so far as that goes, but—shucks! There are lots of those. Never saw a man yet that was fit to marry you, I understand. A sort of a man-hater, maybe.
"Yet you never try to head a man off if you see he's in a fair way to get his heart cracked. That's your favorite sport, according to the dope I get. You just take it as something that is naturally coming to you. If it didn't happen you'd feel insulted. Oh, yes! I've heard about you."
She was rigid as marble and almost as breathless.
"Let me tell you something—Rosie. You can't put that stuff over on me. You can swing it across on some society guy, but it doesn't go here. Why, I can tell things about your doings in the last forty-eight hours that'll knock you clean out of the Blue Book.
"As I said before, I don't want to be rude to a lady, ma'am, and I don't intend to say anything that would hurt her feelings—not for anything. But you make me plain and plumb tired."
Rosalind was crying in sheer helpless rage. The boatman watched the tears stonily. After a short pause he arose from his seat on the ground and whistled to the dog.
"You can come down if you like," he informed her.
Torn with a storm of sobs and mortification, Rosalind made no move to descend. He watched her for a minute, then went into the cabin and returned, dragging the table. This he placed beneath the limb where she still clung, quivering.
Mounting the table, he reached up and in a most impersonal way grasped her about the waist and swung her clear of the tree. For an instant Rosalind found herself poised in the air. Then she was deposited on the ground. She walked a few steps and leaned weakly against the tree. The dog barked in delight.
"Well, you've got to get home, I suppose," said Sam. "And your boat's gone. It's up to me to take you. I don't mind earning a little money.