“How stupid of me!” she said.
“Of me, you mean,” said he. “I should have told you to make it fast. However, no harm is done. I’ll recover the weight and send it back to you.”
He had no trouble in effecting his purpose. He threw the weight as gently as possible into the bow of the boat, she picked it up, and the line was in her hands as he took in the slack and hauled the boat alongside the shelf of rock.
It cannot have escaped notice that the system of hauling which he adopted had the result of bringing their hands together. They scarcely touched, however.
“Thank you,” said she, with profound coldness, when the boat was alongside.
“Your case was not so desperate, after all,” he remarked, with just a trifle less frigidity in his tone, though he now knew that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He had talked of the glamour of moonlight. How could he have been so ridiculous?
“No, my case was not so very desperate,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
Did she mean to suggest that he should now walk away?
“I can’t go, you know, until I am satisfied that your contretemps is at an end,” said he. “My name is Wynne—Harold Wynne. I am a guest of Lord Innisfail’s. I dare say you know him.”
“No,” she replied. “I know nobody.”