Locke followed. She ran like a young fawn! He stumbled once awkwardly—and she turned and laughed at him. He felt the colour mount into his cheeks—felt a tinge of chagrin. Was she vamping him; did she know that if his eyes had been occupied with where he was going, and not with her, he would not have stumbled? Or was she just a little sprite of nature, full to overflowing with life, buoyant, and the more glorious for an unconscious expression of the joy of living? Amazing, he had called what he had seen on this island since he had been installed here as a guest that morning, but most amazing of all was Newcombe's ward. Newcombe's ward! It was rather strange! Who was she? How had a girl like this come to be Captain Newcombe's ward? Newcombe had not been communicative save only on the point that since she had gone to America to school Newcombe had not see her. Rather strange, that, too! He was conscious that she piqued him one moment, while the next found him possessed of a mad desire to touch, for instance, those truant wisps of hair that now, as she stood waiting for him on the edge of the shore, a little out of breath, the colour glowing in her cheeks, she retrieved with deft little movements of her fingers.
Her colour deepened suddenly.
"That's the boathouse over there," she said.
"I—I beg your pardon," said Locke in confusion. And then deliberately: "No; I don't!"
Polly Wickes stared. Again the colour in her cheeks came and went swiftly.
"Oh!" she gasped; then hurriedly: "Well, perhaps, that is better! Don't you think those two little bridges from the rocks up to the boathouse are awfully pretty?"
"Awfully!" laughed Locke.
"You're not looking at them at all," said Polly Wickes severely.
"Yes, I am," asserted Locke. "And just to prove it, I was going to ask why that amazing structure—you see, I said amazing again—that looks more like the home of a yacht club than a private boathouse, is built out into the water like that, and requires those bridges at all? Is it on account of the tide? I see there's no beach here."
"I'm sure I don't know," said Polly Wickes. "But they are pretty, aren't they?—and the place does look like a clubhouse. And it looks more like one inside—there's a lovely little lounging room with an open fireplace, and I can't begin to tell you what else. Shall we go in?"