"What you think I was sleepin' in your dinky boat for, if I had the price of anythin'? It had a blanket in it an' was better than the open, that's why."
"Why didn't you say so," Corrie stormed at him hotly. "Get into those clothes and come upstairs. Or, no; I'll bring it down, stay there."
It was an elaborate lunch-hamper that presently was brought in and set down.
"Eat it," was the concise direction. "That vacuum-bottle is full of hot coffee; drink it. For Heaven's sake stop shivering—why couldn't you speak? Rupert is coming, Gerard. I heard the motor-horn down the road."
Gerard discreetly had turned his back to the scene, reading a last-season bulletin of yacht racing that was fixed to the wall at the end of the room.
"You want to start?" he interpreted, as Corrie joined him.
"Well—I hope you won't mind, but I don't see how we can. I have got to stay here until that chattering, shaking——"
"'Brimstone pig,'" supplied Gerard, with a recollection of the unforgettable Mrs. Smallweed.
"Thanks. Until he finishes and can leave, for the steward will put him out if he finds him here alone."