“Upon my word, I don’t think he’ll get in much before nine o’clock to-night,” continued Cursiter; “it’s pretty nearly dead in his teeth, and he doesn’t make a hundred yards on each tack.”
Mr. Hawkins slammed the lid of the coal bunker, and stepped past his chief into the after-part of the launch.
“I say, Miss Mullen,” he began with scarcely suppressed malignity, “Captain Cursiter says you won’t see your niece before to-morrow morning. You’ll be sorry you wouldn’t let her come home in the launch after all.”
“If she hadn’t been so late for her tea,” retorted Miss Mullen, “Mr. Lambert could have started half an hour before he did.”
“Half an hour will be neither here nor there in this game. What Lambert ought to have done was to have started after luncheon, but I think I may remind you, Miss Mullen, that you took him off to the holy well then.”
“Well, and if I did, I didn’t leave my best pocket handkerchief hanging in rags on the thorn bush, like some other people I know of!” Miss Mullen felt that she had scored, and looked for sympathy to Pamela, who, having as was usual with her, borne the heat and burden of the day in the matter of packings and washings-up, was now sitting, pale and tired, in the stern, with Dinah solidly implanted in her lap, and Max huddled miserably on the seat beside her. Miss Hope-Drummond, shrouded in silence and a long plaid cloak, paid no attention to anyone or anything. There are few who can drink the dregs of the cup of pleasuring with any appearance of enjoyment, and Miss Hope-Drummond was not one of them. The alteration in the respective crews of the yacht and the steam-launch had been made by no wish of hers, and it is probable that but for the unexpected support that Cursiter had received from Miss Mullen, his schemes for Mr. Hawkins’ welfare would not have prospered. The idea had indeed occurred to Miss Hope-Drummond that the proprietor of the launch had perhaps a personal motive in suggesting the exchange, but when she found that Captain Cursiter was going to stand with his back to her, and steer, she wished that she had not yielded her place in the Daphne to a young person whom she already thought of as “that Miss Fitzpatrick,” applying in its full force the demonstrative pronoun that denotes feminine animosity more subtly and expressively than is in the power of any adjective. Hawkins she felt was out of her jurisdiction and unworthy of attention, and she politely ignored Pamela’s attempts to involve her in conversation with him. Her neat brown fringe was out of curl; long strands of hair blew unbecomingly over her ears; her feet were very cold, and she finally buried herself to the nose in a fur boa that gave her the effect of a moustached and bearded Russian noble, and began, as was her custom during sermons and other periods of tedium, to elaborate the construction of a new tea-gown.
To do Mr. Hawkins justice, he, though equally ill-treated by fate, rose superior to his disappointment. After his encounter with Miss Mullen he settled confidentially down in the corner beside Pamela, and amused himself by pulling Dinah’s short, fat tail, and puffing cigarette smoke in her face, while he regaled her mistress with an assortment of the innermost gossip of Lismoyle.
On board the Daphne the aspect of things was less comfortable. Although the wind was too much in her teeth for her to make much advance for home, there was enough to drive her through the water at a pace that made the long tacks from side to side of the lake seem as nothing, and to give Francie as much as she could do to keep her big hat on her head. She was sitting up on the weather side with Lambert, who was steering; and Christopher, in the bows, was working the head sails, and acting as movable ballast when they went about. At first, while they were beating out of the narrow channel of Ochery, Francie had found it advisable to lie in a heap beneath a tarpaulin, to avoid the onslaught of the boom at each frequent tack, but now that they were out on the open lake, with the top-sail hoisted, she had risen to her present position, and, in spite of her screams as the sharp squalls came down from the mountains and lifted her hat till it stood on end like a rearing horse, was enjoying herself amazingly. Unlike Miss Hope-Drummond, she was pre-eminently one of those who come home unflagging from the most prolonged outing, and to-day’s entertainment, so far from being exhausting, had verified to the utmost her belief in the charms of the British officer, as well as Miss Fanny Hemphill’s prophecies of her success in such quarters. Nevertheless she was quite content to return in the yacht; it was salutary for Mr. Hawkins to see that she could do without him very well, it took her from Charlotte’s dangerous proximity, and it also gave her an opportunity of appeasing Mr. Lambert, who, as she was quite aware, was not in the best of tempers. So far her nimble tongue had of necessity been idle. Christopher’s position in the bows isolated him from all conversation of the ordinary pitch, and Lambert had been at first too much occupied with the affairs of his boat to speak to her, but now, as a sharper gust nearly snatched her hat from her restraining hand, he turned to her.
“If it wasn’t that you seem to enjoy having that hat blown inside out every second minute,” he said chillingly, “I’d offer to lend you a cap.”
“What sort is it?” demanded Francie. “If it’s anything like that old deerstalker thing you have on your head now, I wouldn’t touch it with the tongs!”