CHAPTER XVI
A MAN WHO FEELS HIMSELF A MAN
Towards the end of the afternoon, when the air had grown cooler, Mr. Archibald proposed a boating expedition to the lower end of the lake. His boat was large enough for Matlack, the three ladies, and himself, and if the two young men wished to follow, they had a boat of their own.
When first asked to join the boating party Miss Corona Raybold hesitated; she did not care very much about boating; but when she found that if she stayed in camp she would have no one to talk to, she accepted the invitation.
Mr. Archibald took the oars nearest the stern, while Matlack seated himself forward, and this arrangement suited Miss Corona exactly.
The boat kept down the middle of the lake, greatly aided by the current, and Corona talked steadily to Mr. Archibald. Mrs. Archibald, who always wanted to do what was right, and who did not like to be left out of any conversation on important subjects, made now and then a remark, and whenever she spoke Corona turned to her and listened with the kindest attention, but the moment the elder lady had finished, the other resumed her own thread of observation without the slightest allusion to what she had just heard.
As for Mr. Archibald, he seldom said a word. He listened, sometimes his eyes twinkled, and he pulled easily and steadily. Doubtless he had a good many ideas, but none of them was expressed. As for Margery, she leaned back in the stern, and thought that, after all, she liked Miss Raybold better than she did her brother, for the young lady did not speak one word to her, nor did she appear to regard her in any way.
“But how on earth,” thought Margery, “she can float over this beautiful water and under this lovely sky, with the grandeur of the forest all about her, and yet pay not the slightest attention to anything she sees, but keep steadily talking about her own affairs and the society she belongs to, I cannot imagine. She might as well live in a cellar and have pamphlets and reformers shoved down to her through the coal-hole.”
Messrs. Clyde and Raybold accompanied the larger boat in their own skiff. It was an unwieldy craft, with but one pair of oars, and as the two young men were not accustomed to rowing together, and as Mr. Raybold was not accustomed to rowing at all and did not like it, Mr. Clyde pulled the boat. But, do what he could, it was impossible for him to get near the other boat. Matlack, who was not obliged to listen to Miss Corona, kept his eye upon the following skiff, and seemed to fear a collision if the two boats came close together, for if Clyde pulled hard he pulled harder. Arthur Raybold was not satisfied.
“I thought you were a better oarsman,” he said to the other; “but now I suppose we shall not come near them until we land.”