"You can pay off, Tunis," returned the old man. "Tuck that robe around your knees, Prudence. This night air is as chill as a breath off the ice barrens."
Orion loafed into the lamplight by the steps before Queenie got into action. His scowl was unseen, but his voice was audible—as it was meant to be—to Sheila's ears.
"There he is—hoggin' everything, same as usual. How did I know he was hanging around outside here, waiting to drive her home? Just as though he owned her! Huh! He may be skipper aboard that dratted schooner, but that gives him no right to boss me ashore. I won't stand it."
"Sit down to it, then, 'Rion," snickered one of the other young fellows. "I cal'late Tunis has got the inside course on all of us."
The girl said nothing to the captain of the Seamew at first. It was Prudence who asked him why he had not been in the church.
"I could not get over here until just now," Tunis replied quietly.
Sheila wondered if he really had been detained on the schooner. Perhaps he had refrained from coming to the festival for fear the good people of Big Wreck Cove would notice his attentions to her. He had never been publicly in her company since he had brought her down from Boston. Orion Latham's outburst there at the church door was the first cue people might have gained of anything more than a passing acquaintanceship between the captain of the Seamew and the girl who had come to live with the Balls.
These thoughts bore down the girl's spirits tremendously. The simple pleasure of the evening was quite erased from her memory. She remained speechless while old Queenie climbed the hill to the Head.
The desultory conversation between Cap'n Ira, Prudence, and the young shipmaster scarcely attracted the girl's attention. If Tunis looked at her curiously now and then, she did not see his glances. And she merely nodded her understanding of his statement when Tunis said, speaking directly to her:
"The Seamew's going to lie here over Sunday this time, Ida May."