Pen saw that the indignant parent only wanted to put himself on record, and that underneath the man was delighted. She went ahead and gave him his breakfast. He ate it in a charming humor.
Afterwards she went about her household chores waiting for Riever, sick with anxiety. Suppose he didn't come? Suppose even then, the yacht was getting ready to sail? She couldn't go out to see. She simply could not humiliate her pride to the extent of going down to the wharf to look for her money.
After all Riever did come, and early, too. It still lacked a few minutes of nine. But he met Pendleton outside, who brought him in, and the two men were closeted in the front drawing-room for awhile. Pen felt by instinct that this interview boded her no good. Afterwards her father came to her in the kitchen saying:
"Mr. Riever wants to say good-by to you."
He avoided Pen's eye as he said it, and there were complacent little lines about the corners of his mouth. "Riever has given him more money!" Pen thought with sinking heart.
Pendleton did not accompany her back to the drawing-room. Riever was waiting for her, carefully dressed in his admirable, square-cut yachting suit. He was brisk, and inclined to be effusive, signs in Pen's eyes that he was secretly uneasy. But perhaps that was natural. His eyes were as devoid of expression as an animal's; she could not guess of what he was thinking; his words came merely from his lips.
"How are you?" he asked solicitously. "Ah, pale, I see! Not much sleep perhaps? Well thank God! this nasty business is about over."
Pen did not feel that this required any answer. She waited.
"I said I'd come to see you before I set sail this morning," Riever went on briskly—and then came to a somewhat lame pause.
Pen waited in an anxiety that was like a physical pain for him to produce a check-book or a bundle of notes. But he made no such move. There was an awkward silence. Finally he said as if at random: