She stopped suddenly, and glanced at him with some keenness. Lockwood, sitting with his hand on the useless wheel, as the boat slowly veered on the drift, thought of what he had heard in casual gossip—how this girl had escaped from the primal squalor and discredit of the family life “up the river,” and had gone out to mold her own fortunes. Certainly she had not failed in it. She must have been drawing a fair salary at Lyman & Fourget’s; and she had taken on a tone of city smoothness and culture, a very different manner from the rollicking roughness of her brothers.
“But how am I going to get home?” she cried plaintively. “We’re drifting that way, aren’t we? About an inch an hour.”
“I’ll try again,” and once more he managed to start the engine into a splutter of activity. For a few yards he navigated the boat, and then turned.
“If you’ll allow me, I think I’d better drive her home for you. She might last, though more likely she’ll play out again.”
“I wish you would. One of the boys will drive you back in our car. But what about your horse?”
“He’ll do where he is. Everybody knows who that horse belongs to, and I suppose I can be back in half an hour.”
He was really in no hurry to get back, and he almost wished the engine would give trouble again. He wanted to talk with this girl; he was anxious to get on some sort of terms with her; he desired very much to know on what sort of terms she stood with Hanna.
“Not a very cheerful place to come for an excursion,” he said, as they rounded a bend of raw clay banks, and saw a water moccasin slide off into the bayou.
“Mr. Hanna was teaching me to run the boat. It’s easier in this still water than out in the river. I expect,” she added with some hesitation, “that you saw how I left him ashore.”
“I did.”