"Why did you speak like that—before a stranger?"
"Like what?" he asked, in astonishment.
"About coming home unchanged, and finding nothing as you had left it. Of course he knew what you meant. And it wasn't true, for I have not changed. I could have sunk through the deck for shame."
"Oh, that," he replied. "He didn't understand; he thought it was a text."
"A text!" She turned away in scorn.
A moment he stood looking outboard with unseeing eyes; then he stooped and drew a boat-hook from the slings beneath the rail.
"Wouldn't you like to have a piece?" he asked, pointing to the seaweed.
She hesitated a moment, and then came back to his side.
"Yes," she said.
He drew in a great bunch and spread it at her feet, and she picked up a bit with dainty fingers.