"Oh—you——"
"I know a few things about you. It's none of my business what you try out with other girls," Ralph hastily added. "But you be mighty careful with Lorna."
He turned on his heel then and strode away. Degger sneered after him.
"Think's he is the Great I Am!" he muttered. "You'd think he owned the girl. And putting on his airs with me!" Degger's scowl grew darker as he added: "Guess the beggar wants me to pay up. That is like these rich fellows. They are mighty free offering to lend you money; but they make you feel the obligation forever after."
Now, Conway Degger quite wronged Ralph on this point. The latter had entirely forgotten that Degger was in his debt from some time back in their college days.
Indeed, Ralph Endicott was never one to trouble about money, for he never remembered putting his hand into his pocket when he wanted that commodity without finding it. His family had been wealthy for generations. Just how well-to-do they were in the present generation he had never troubled to ask. Uncle Henry and the family attorneys attended to all that.
It did seem odd that just at this time the money matters of other people should begin to disturb Ralph Endicott. Not that he bothered his head about Conny Degger's affairs. It was somebody entirely different of whose financial difficulties he was unexpectedly made aware.
Coming up from the shore following his brief conversation with Degger, Ralph found the old lightkeeper mending a seine outside the lighthouse door.
"Wal, now," said Tobias, "ye look some het up. I seen ye soaking yourself out there on the sand in the sun, and I cal'lated you'd look like a b'iled lobster when you come up. And you do."
Ralph knew that it was an angry flush Tobias saw on his face. He grinned ruefully.