“Ben?” said Jane again, as they rowed under the dark shadow of the island. “Ben?” with a little loyal effort to make conversation such as lovers know, “did you ever read a poem called Kubla Khan?”
“I hain’t had time to read sence I left the grammar school,” said Ben.
“What’s up with you, anyhow?” he added, after a moment’s sullen reflection.
He looked darkly over Jane’s head towards the harbor’s mouth. At that moment Bayard was tying the painter of the dory to the stern of the shell. Jane did not look back. A slight grayness settled about her mouth; she had the protruding mouth and evident cheek-bones of the consumptive woman of the coast.
“D—— him!” said Ben Trawl.
Bayard had indeed crossed into Helen’s boat without so much as saying, By your leave. Her eyes had a dangerous expression, to which he paid no sort of attention.
“Didn’t you know better than to take this shell—so far—with the tide setting out?” he demanded. “Give me those oars!”
“I understand how to manage a boat,” replied the young lady coldly. She did not move.
“Give me those oars!” thundered Bayard.