"Well, maybe not a vagabond," Minga looked over her shoulder warily, "a tramp, sort of, and he might be crazy. I heard him," she went on mysteriously, "use Latin words a moment ago and then look around, oh, so strangely."
"Sure thing," Shipman, with equal solemnity, nodded; "anyone who uses Latin or Greek these days is mad, of course; but it's a divine madness. I use it myself. I'm a little mad, you know." He bent amused eyes on his companion. "How did you know it was Latin?"
Minga looked back a little exultantly; the coquette in her never very far away from the surface, rose to his teasing. "I know some," announced this young person with a toss; "for instance," Minga became rather glib at the game they were playing, this was her "line," "I know all the conjugations of the verb 'amo.'"
"Well done," said Shipman idly. He smiled perfunctorily, but the great lawyer did not seem particularly anxious to take up this gay little gauntlet; he was thoughtful, prodding the creek water rather viciously. "You think Colter might be a college man in disguise," he said abruptly, "wandering around studying sociological problems, no? That sort of thing is a fad these days, isn't it?" Just then Sard hailed them.
"I hear the Gertrude-bunch down-stream," she called in laughing triumph. "We've beat them to it; that's Dunce's queer yelp. Now," said the girl briskly, "suppose we get out on the shores of this big 'race' ahead here and make a fire and have our supper and wait until they turn up, then we can give them coffee, and we can all go down-stream in a procession and slam home in the machines together."
Minga nodded approvingly; the youngster had been a little overawed by the society of a man so much older than herself; now the prospect of a few young howlers and slangers of her own set revived her. "The very thing," she said. At the same time Minga realized that it would impress Gertrude and Cinny to see her being propelled in a skiff by the well-known barrister, Watts Shipman. All her funny little appreciations of life were concentrated upon keeping Shipman apparently her slave until these ladies should appear. They would think him awfully old, of course, but then, he was a famous lawyer and "popular," or as Minga construed him, "important," and that would be good for Gertrude and Cinny. The small intriguer waited in a highly feminine manner for Shipman to assist her out of the skiff.
Suddenly there was an exclamation from Colter, who had found a large mussel hanging on a half-submerged tree trunk. He methodically opened it with his knife and had just cut out from the jelly-like substance within a smooth oval as big as a grain of barley. "A beauty," breathed Colter, as he bent soberly down to the water to wash it. The group watched him take a bit of chamois from his pocket and polish it; somehow Sard was not surprised to see the long sensitive hand go into another pocket and produce a magnifying glass. The girl, who had been watching him gravely, felt a curious exultation that the other man should see her protégé so detached and calm in his movements. She looked curiously into his face, noting with a kind of pang, a wonder, all the lines of sweetness and self-control, laid over with a strange patience. She felt triumphant—suddenly Colter turned toward her, and with a little bow, put in her hand the little misshapen pearl. "A shape like folded light, embodied air," he murmured.
Sard stared. "Why, that is Emerson." Then wonderingly, "You read that in my little book?"
He smiled. Colter's smile was pleasant, with a row of not too regular, but very white teeth. "I used to know it by heart," he confessed; he seemed to forget Shipman and Minga, standing there observing. Once more the strange look came over his face, and he said rather eagerly, "For a time it seemed to open a door, but I——" Suddenly the man turned sharply, so sharply that the girl was startled. "Where was that?" he demanded thickly. "When did it happen? What was it that made my head cloud and the long illness? Who was I before that? Where was I then?"