"In spite of the lead. It wasn't much service, Jimmy. It really seems that one is just as safe when going full-speed ahead. Besides, you got off again, and brought the Shasta back undamaged. Well, perhaps it may occur to you by and by that there must always be a little uncertainty, and in the meanwhile I dare say you won't mind giving me your arm. I must go in, and these steps seem to be getting steeper lately."
Jimmy gravely held out his arm, and when he handed her one of the shawls as they reached the veranda, she smiled at him again.
"Now you are released, and I see Anthea is all alone," she said.
She disappeared into the house, and Jimmy's heart beat a good deal faster than usual when he went down the stairway. Though he did not know what he would say to her, he had been longing all evening for a word or two with Anthea, and now the desire was almost overwhelming. He had, of course, seen the drift of Nellie Austerly's observations, and it scarcely seemed likely that she would have offered him the veiled encouragement unless she had had some ground for believing that it was warranted. He also remembered what he had twice seen in Anthea's face; but he was a steamboat skipper with no means worth mentioning, and she the daughter of a man who was in one sense responsible for his father's death. That was certainly not her fault, but Jimmy felt that even if she would listen to him, of which he was far from certain, he could not expose her to her father's ill-will and the scornful pity of her friends. Still, Nellie Austerly's words had had their effect, and he strode straight across the lawn, with the same curious little thrill running through him of which he had been sensible when he drove the Shasta full-speed into the fog.
Anthea stood waiting for him beneath the dark firs, very much as she had done when he had last seen her, with a smile in her eyes.
"I suppose it is Nellie's fault, but I was commencing to wonder whether you wished to avoid me," she said.
Jimmy stood silent a moment, trying to impose a due restraint upon himself, until she lifted her eyes and looked at him. Then he knew the attempt was useless, and abandoned it.
"The fault was not exactly mine," he said, with a faint hoarseness in his voice. "For one thing, how could I know that you would be pleased to see me?"
"Still," said Anthea quietly, "I really think you did. Were your other reasons for staying away more convincing?"
Then Jimmy flung prudence to the winds. The fog of which he had declared himself afraid was thicker than ever, but that fact had suddenly ceased to trouble him. Again he felt, as he had done when he crouched in the Sorata's cockpit one wild morning, that he and Anthea Merril were merely man and woman, and that she was the one he wanted for his wife. That was sufficient, for the time being, to drive out every other consideration; but he answered her quietly.