He had spoken to her that way ten years before when they were in the middle of some adventurous escapade. Lorna flushed and turned away her face again. More than a pout expressed her vexation now. Ralph did not show a proper appreciation of her "grown-upness." She had been for the moment too kind to him!
So after that, and when he had bailed the dory completely and had come inboard, Lorna snubbed him. Her fluctuating attitude certainly puzzled the young man.
"Now what have I done?" he secretly wondered.
But as she left the wheel to him without speaking and went to sit down alone in the stern of the Fenique, he did not urge conversation upon her. They sailed into Clinkerport Bay, and so around to the cove beside the lighthouse, both about as cheerful as had been their wont when together during the past few weeks.
Tobias came down to the shore to hail them.
"I give it as my opinion," the lightkeeper said, "that you sandpipers air all lackin' in good sense. 'Tis a mystery to me how you come to get raised to the age you be without getting drowned a dozen times over!"
"I was born to be hung," Ralph told him. "The sea isn't wet enough to drown me."
"But you've no business riskin' Lorny's life in your tom-fool v'y'ges."
Ralph did not even bother to deny the lightkeeper's charge. He snubbed the motor-boat to the mooring buoy and then sculled Lorna ashore in the dory. She still wore his oilskins and was bare-footed, but carried her dress over her arm.
"I'll run up to the light to dress," she said. "In any case I must see Mr. Degger for a moment."