“You will come too, Mamma?”
“Of course; but considering Dr. Kemp’s length, a third in your little boat will be the proverbial trumpery. Still, I suppose I can rely on you two crack oarsmen, though you know the slightest tremble in the boat in the fairest weather is likely to create a squall on my part.”
If Dr. Kemp wished to row, he should row; and since the Jewish Mrs. Grundy was not on hand, anything harmlessly enjoyable was permissible.
Ruth went indoors. This was certainly something she had not bargained for. How could her mother be so blind as not to know or feel her desire to evade Dr. Kemp? She felt a positive contempt for herself that his presence should affect her as it did; she dared not look at him lest her heart should flutter to her eyes. Probably the display amused him. What was she to him anyway but a girl with whom he could flirt in his idle moments? Well (with a passionate fling of her arms), she would extinguish her uncontrollable little beater for the nonce; she would meet and answer every one of his long glances in kind.
She wound a black lace shawl around her head, and with some wraps for her mother, came out.
“Hadn’t you better put something over your shoulders?” he asked deferentially as she appeared.
“And disgust the night with lack of appreciation?”
She turned to a corner of the porch and lifted a pair of oars to her shoulder.
“Why,” he said in surprise, coming toward her, “you keep your oars at home?”
“On the principle of ‘neither a borrower nor a lender be;’ we find it saves both time and spleen.”