"We needn't row any more," she said. "We are in the current. The current will take us. Hughie, can you swim?"
"I don't know anything about swimming," he said.
"Well, that is rather bad for you; for in about five minutes of this sort of thing we go right down the cascade at the end of the lake and among the breakers. The boat will be upset, and you will have to fight for your life, unless I choose to save you. I could save you, for I have perfect control of myself in the water."
"But you don't mean to say you are going to do anything of that sort! Can't we get into the calmer part of the lake? I don't understand you," said Hughie.
"But I understand you. You don't like me, and I don't like you. From the very first you have been disagreeable. I like your little sister, but you don't want me to like her."
"Well, I think you are a bit rough on old Em," was Hughie's remark.
"What a flash that was!" said Irene; and her eyes danced with cruel pleasure. "Ah! here comes the rain."
A terrific hail-shower drenched the two children as they sat within the rocking boat. For the first time in her life Irene was really slightly frightened. Had she dared too much? Even she might not be able to get the boat out of the current just at present; and if she did not, and they really got among the breakers and over the cascade in the present storm, it might be beyond her power to save Hughie. As to herself, she was not at all afraid. She felt she could swim through anything and over anything; but she was not certain that she could swim and support a boy so big and strong as Hughie.
Then there rose before her vision the face of Rosamund—Rosamund's face with its noble expression, its clear, steadfast, dark eyes—Rosamund with her ringing voice. Oh, what influence for good she had exercised over Irene's wild, worthless, almost terrible life, and yet she was disobeying all her precepts now, and frightening poor Hughie almost to death!
"I tell you what it is," she said in a husky voice; "we will both try to get out of this current if you will make me a promise."