Dallas sat there, still enveloped in her long coat; and Kenyon noticed, with a quick shock, that she was very pale.
“You should not have come,” said he, and Webster nodded significantly, aside, at the gentleness of the tone. “It has been too much for you.”
“Do I look bad?” she asked. “But perhaps it is the lantern light,” and she smiled bravely.
“I have calculated to catch the Wizard about North Brother Island,” said Kenyon. “You see the stretch of water from the Twenty-third Street anchorage to the mouth of the Harlem is one of the most congested on earth. A craft is forced to proceed at low speed at any time, and more especially upon a dark night like this. The cars brought us up like hurricanes, and we’ll get into the big stream in good time, if nothing goes wrong.”
“Good work!” applauded Webster. “I tell you what, Miss Gilbert, it takes Kenyon to do this sort of thing properly. At college now, he was especially excellent in planning things. Do you notice the blush?” with a chuckle at his friend’s secret and impatient gestures. “I think modesty is so becoming in a man, don’t you?”
“I do, indeed,” smiled the girl.
“Now, Garry, before you relapse into a state of hopeless idiocy,” remarked Kenyon, “pay attention, and I’ll tell you what has happened.”
So while Webster listened Kenyon told him what the reader already knows. When he had finished Webster arose.
“Miss Gilbert,” said he, bowing as well as the swaying of the flying boat would permit, “I bend the knee before courage. Now, that little scene of yours with an apparently desperate cracksman,” and his blue eyes snapped with admiration, “was one that required doing, and I tell you what, Ken,” with a wise nod toward his friend, “you should be mighty glad that it happened. It has set you right, somehow.”
After some further discussion Webster went upon deck.