The girls were unpacking the baskets and Maud had produced a tablecloth.
"Here, give me the bucket and I'll get the water," grumbled Culpepper, "but the rest of you fellows busy yourselves with the fire."
It was wonderful always, floating back those twelve miles downstream by moonlight. And such moonlight as there was to-night! One wondered what Amanthus found to say to Bliss. Culpepper with his orange and black blazer over his boating togs was lolling back in the stern of their barge beside Selina, and she said as much to him.
He answered good-humoredly, "It isn't Amanthus' business in life to say, as she's often told you. She won't try to say."
Tod Bacon, that nice boy, and Sam Rand, had their mandolins. Their clever picking of the strings ting-ling-a-linged over the broad waters.
"Honey, I'm going home to-morrow," said Culpepper, laying hold of a bit of Selina's jacket as it lay unused on her lap and openly fondling it while his eyes sought her face in the moonlight. "You haven't let me talk to you yet? What are you going to do about it?"
And here Culpepper's hand, his big, firm hand leaving the cloak he had used for a blind, found her hand.
Culpepper took what he wanted of life and people! She had said so before! And resented it!
She regained her hand. He didn't seem to hold it against her and went back to his fondling of the jacket. "What you going to do about it, honey?"