"I mean that if there is room I should like to ride down with you very much. I want to get to the hall early and I have these things to carry. Mother and the rest of the Harbor people are going later, of course.... So, if you are sure that I and my bundles won't be nuisances——"
He was sure, emphatically and enthusiastically sure. But his surprise was great and he voiced it involuntarily.
"I supposed, of course," he said, "that your passage was booked long ago. I supposed George had attended to that."
Her answer was brief, but there was an air of finality about it which headed off further questions.
"I am not going with him," she said.
So this was his second cause for good spirits, the fact that Elizabeth Berry was to ride with him to the hall that evening. It was a very slight inconsequential reason surely, but somehow he found it sufficient. She was going with him merely because he and the Foam Flake and the buggy furnished the most convenient method of transportation for her and her packages, but she was going—and she was not going with George Kent. There was a certain wicked pleasure in the last thought. He was ashamed of it, but the pleasure was there in spite of the shame. Kent had so much that he had not, but here was one little grain of advantage to enter upon the Kendrick side of the ledger; Elizabeth Berry was not going to the town hall with Kent, but with him.
He made but one protest and that only because his conscience goaded him into making it.
"I don't know as I ought to let you, Miss Elizabeth," he said. "I'm takin' a chance, I suppose, that perhaps you shouldn't take. This is my first voyage under my own command since I ran on the rocks. I may strike another reef, you can't tell."
She looked at him and smiled.
"I am not afraid," she said.