"I did not hear all you said, but I think Mr. Ormesby is partly right," was the frank answer. "I just stopped on my way to the boat to get some wrappings. It soon grows chilly."
The girl refused our offers of assistance. Somebody called Leyland away, and I was left alone, possibly against both our wishes, in Beatrice Haldane's company. Still, it was an opportunity that might not occur again, and I determined to turn it to good account.
"Although you expressed strong disapproval not long ago, one could have fancied you were not speaking from a wholly impersonal standpoint and meant to give me good advice," I said.
The spirit which had carried Haldane triumphantly through commercial panic was not lacking in either of his daughters, and the elder one quietly took up the challenge. "Perhaps the other could not be thrust aside, and I have wondered whether you are wise in staking all your future on the chances of success on the prairie. There are greater possibilities in the busy world that lies before you now, but presently habit and the force of associations will bind you to the soil, and you must remain a raiser of cattle and sower of grain. Is it not possible for the monotony and drudgery to drag one down to a steadily sinking level?"
The words stung me. I had done my best in my vocation, and it seemed had failed therein. Neither was it impossible that the last sentence possessed a definite meaning, and suppressed longing and resentment against the pressure of circumstances held me silent after I had managed to check the rash answer that rose to my lips. Then a shout broke through the pause which followed, and Beatrice Haldane sprang to her feet. "Lucille has set the boat adrift! Go and help her if you can!" she said.
A glance showed me the catboat sliding out towards open water before the angry white ripples that crisped the little bay, for here the wind, deflected by a hollow, blew freshly off-shore. A slight white-clad figure stood on the fore deck, and I shouted: "Jump down and fling the anchor over!"
"There is no anchor!" the answer reached me faintly; and I set off across a strip of shingle and boulders at a floundering run.
The rest of the company were gathered in dismay upon a rocky ledge when I came up, and Caryl tore off his jacket. Leyland turned to me, with consternation in his face, as he said: "Ted must have tied some fool knot and she's blowing right out across the lake. None of us can swim."
"It's my fault, and I'm going to try, anyway. The water cannot be deep inside here," gasped the valiant Caryl.
I saw that, for inland waters, a tolerable sea was running where the true wind blew straight down the lake, sufficient to endanger the catboat if she drifted without control athwart it. There was evidently no time to lose, and I turned angrily upon Caryl. "If you jump in here you will certainly drown, and that will help nobody," I said.