"I'll shut the door between," said Carlisle.
Before long, from the mother's side of the door so shut, certain sounds arose indicating that after the morning's fitful fever she slept well. Carlisle, on her own side, quickly donned a white boating-dress, a blue fillet for her hair, and white doeskin shoes with rubber soles. That done, she went out through the sitting-room, shot down in the lift, traversed the forsaken lobby, and emerged upon the long empty boating pavilion which ran from the hotel's side-entrance well out over the water.
"The bell-boy gave you my message, Mr. Wedge?" said she, to the weather-tanned renter of boats. "How do you do? I'm late. How's the little Lady Jane?"
"How you, Miss Heth? Glad to see you back again, Miss. Lady Jane's trim as ever. Yes'm. And there's a little sou' breeze coming up--puffy, but just suit her."
"Bring her up a little more."
"Yes'm--there now! Feels most like summer, don't it?"
"But it doesn't look like it!" smiled Miss Heth, and glanced about at the emptiness of things.
"You'd ought to of seen her afore the hot spell," replied Mr. Wedge, with artificial hilarity....
Then the light air took the little sail and Carlisle slid away with the sunshine on her hair.
For half a week the breath of summer had confounded October, mid-autumn plucking a leaf from July's best book. Now, with the half-holiday at hand and a Sabbath to follow, a few others beside the Heths and the Willie Kerr select party had deemed it worth while to go down to the sea where the breezes blow. Only a few, though: the desolate quiet of a summer place out of season yet clung and hung over all. In a solitary corner of the vast piazza four coatless men sat idly drinking the rickeys of summer. These, indeed, watched the embarkation of the girl with interest, and when she stood a moment to get a knot out of the sheet, revealing the figure of the Huntswoman (though she was by no means one of your great Amazons), one of them might have been heard to say: