“There’s plenty of room for an argument, but who wants to argue on a night like this?” Hal returned equably, fixing laughing blue eyes upon Danny.
“You are right, Mr. Macy.” Danny made Hal a derisively respectful bow. “I hope others here besides us cherish the same opinion. You do, I am sure. Don’t you, Geraldine?” He turned hopefully to Jerry.
“I don’t cherish anything,” Jerry returned crushingly.
“Ha-a-a! How sad!” Danny heaved a loud sigh. “What a dreary life you must lead!”
“It suits me,” Jerry asserted, with a cheerful smile. “Who’s going to take the wheel on the run seaward?” she inquired generally. “Don’t all speak at once. Don’t speak at all, if you’re not crazy for the pilot job. I’d like it, if no one else wants it.”
“Oh, if you insist.” Laurie Armitage willingly accorded Jerry the wheel. He stood steadying the boat at the little pier while Hal helped the three girls over the side and into the launch.
Constance and Laurie Armitage had lately returned from another year’s study of music in Europe. They had not reached Sanford in time to see Marjorie before she had gone West with her father and mother to visit Ronny. In consequence they had looked forward to her sunny presence at Severn Beach with an affectionate impatience second only to Hal’s.
“So glad you brought the guitar, Laurie,” Marjorie said as Laurie picked it up from the pier floor, where he had laid it briefly, and passed it over the side of the launch to Constance. “Do you know any Spanish songs? I heard such beautiful ones at Manaña.”
“Only two or three. We are going to Spain next winter to study the Spanish music and find a very old Spanish opera for Connie, if we can. We found an old music folio in Paris in a queer little odds and ends shop that had three numbers in it from an old Spanish opera called ‘la Encantadora’; the enchantress. Next time we go abroad it will be on the trail of la Encantadora,” Laurie declared lightly as he stepped into the launch behind the trio of girls.
“Sometime you and Connie must go to Mexico and hunt up some Spanish Mexican music,” Marjorie said with enthusiasm. She went on to tell them of how she and Ronny had been serenaded by Teresa’s sons and of the tender beauty of the old Spanish song “Las Estrellas.”