He chuckled and lay down again, and no one spoke during the rest of the voyage. It was after nine when I brought the boat up to the wharf, made her fast, and lowered and furled the sail.
“Better come up to the house with us and have a bit to eat, Paine,” urged Colton. “You must be hungry; I know I am.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” said I. “Supper will be waiting for me at home.”
“Glad to have you, if you'll come. Tell him to come, Mabel.”
Miss Colton's invitation was not over-cordial.
“I presume Mr. Paine knows what is best for him to do,” she said. “Of course we shall be glad to have him, if he will come.”
I declined, and, after thanking me for the sail and the pleasure of the fishing trip, they left me, Colton carrying his big squiteague by the gills, its tail slapping his leg as he climbed the bluff. A moment later I followed.
The night was, as my feminine passenger had said, wonderfully quiet, and sounds carried a long way. As I reached the juncture of the path and the Lane I heard a voice which I recognized as Mrs. Colton's. She was evidently standing on the veranda of the big house and I heard every word distinctly.
“You are so unthinking, James! You and Mabel have no regard for my feelings at all. I have been worried almost to death. Do you realize the time? I warned you against trusting yourself to the care of that common FELLOW—”
The “fellow” heard no more. He did not wish to. He was tramping heavily through the dew-soaked undergrowth. He needed now no counsel against “playing with fire.” The cutting contempt of Mrs. James W. Colton's remark was fire-extinguisher sufficient for that night.