"You don't suppose any of these girls about here—the nice girls, I mean—want a man who is not a home provider?"
He laughed outright then. "Some of them get that kind, I fear, Miss
Grayling. Mandy Card, for instance."
"Are you planning to be another Milt Baker?" she responded with scorn.
"Oh, now, you're hard on a fellow," he complained. "I'm always busy. And, fixed as I am, I don't see why I should grub and moil at unpleasant things."
Louise shrugged her shoulders and made a gesture of finality. "You are impossible, I fear," she said and put aside—not without a secret pang—her interest in Lawford Tapp, an interest which had been developing since she first met the young man.
He allowed the subject to lapse and began telling her about the ledges on which the rock cod and tautog schooled; where bluefish might be caught on the line, and snappers in the channels going into the Haven.
"Good sport. I must take you out in the Merry Andrew," he said.
"She's a peach of a sailer—and my very own."
"Oh! do you own the sloop, Mr. Tapp?"
"I guess I do! And no money could buy her," he cried with boyish enthusiasm. "She's the best lap-streak boat anywhere along the Cape. And sail!"
"I love sailing," she confessed, with brightening visage.