"Give me the glass," said Will Lockhart grimly. The sight of his supposed successor signalling for the impossible gave him a thrill of satisfaction; for he, at least, was on the right side of the stream. And then to the keen little creature at his side came a mood well remembered.
"The born idiot! Any Christian would have stopped at the hotel even if he was wanting to come on. A fool for his pains! Ah! what's the use of blowing like a hooter with the wind and tide against you? Gracious goody! Rick, what's to be done? The gawk can't be left there like a windmill."
The comparison was not inapt; for the professor, seeing them, doubtless, against the firelight within, was waving his arms frantically.
"I'll go down and signal him to that bieldy bit behind the big rock. It's out of the wind anyhow, and the tide will be turning before he could walk back to shelter. And I'll stop in the boat-house; it will comfort him to see me smoking, especially if he has forgotten his matches. Besides, I must put new rowlocks to the four-oar. We'll want her, and the men too, if any one is to cross the stream tonight."
"That's a nice boy," said Will Lockhart, putting down the glasses as Rick's figure on its way to the boat-house blocked out the professor's increasing despair. "Just about the age I was when--" He paused and looked at his companion.
"Yes! You were twenty-one, and I was eighteen."
They were standing close together, the firelight throwing their shadows out faintly against the growing darkness, but on their faces the dull autumn twilight lingered, blotting out all traces of the passage of time.
He came a little nearer to her.
"I wonder why we quarrelled?" he said argumentatively. "I don't mean what we quarrelled about. That was never very difficult to find, was it? But why did we quarrel finally that last time? I don't recollect that you were more wilful than usual."
"No doubt you were more aggravating," she retorted quickly. "Do you wish to begin it all over again? I will if you've a mind to."