Of course, if she really cared for the fellow——
Then what Tobias Bassett had said about its being necessary for Lorna to marry a wealthy man flashed into Ralph's mind. Degger certainly was not wealthy. Ralph had reason to know this to be a fact.
If the Nicholets were in financial straits and looked to Lorna to make a moneyed marriage, the girl had picked the wrong partner in her match-making.
Ralph did not feel any scorn for Lorna in this supposition. He only pitied her. Determined as she was not to marry Ralph, Endicott knew she must be forced by family pressure to accept the next best marriageable possibility. But he was sure Lorna was misinformed regarding Degger.
Of course, the latter believed the Nicholets to be wealthy. He was, Ralph was confident, nothing more nor less than a fortune hunter. That his old friend and this Degger were mutually mistaken in each other's financial affairs was not a situation from which Ralph could extract any amusement. Not at all! He hated to see Lorna waste any of her thought—perhaps a measure of her confidence—upon such a character as Degger.
"She has gone through the wood and picked up a crooked stick, after all," Ralph reflected, while maneuvering the motor-boat. "I didn't think she was such a little fool!"
There was some bitterness in this expression of his thought. Although he had no wish to marry Lorna (or so he almost hourly told himself) Ralph Endicott felt a certain proprietorship in the girl because of their years of intimacy. Had she been his sister he believed he would have felt the same.
When Degger learned that Lorna would have no dowry, he would leave her flat. He was not a fellow to really fall in love with any girl. He was too much in love with himself, was Conny Degger.
Ralph looked around again. The man was recovering, and Lorna had drawn away from him. She was saturated as well as Degger, and Ralph saw now that she shook with the cold.
"Come here, Lorna, and hold the wheel. Just as she is. There! I'll get you something to put on."