"And still"—she returned to the charge—"you haven't told me what you mean to do, since you refuse my help."
"I mean," he asserted cheerfully, "to sit here, aping Patience on a monument, until some kind-hearted person fetches me a stick or other suitable piece of wood to serve as emergency staff. Then I shall make shift to hobble to your motor-boat and thank you very kindly for ferrying me home."
"Very well," she said with a business-like air. "Now we understand one another, I'll see what I can find."
Reviewing their surroundings with a swift and comprehensive glance, she shook her head in dainty annoyance, stood for an instant plunged in speculation, then, light-footed, darted from sight round the side of the bath-house.
He waited, a tender nurse to his ankle, smiling vaguely at the benign sky.
Presently she reappeared, dragging an eight-foot pole, which, from certain indications, seemed to have been formerly dedicated to the office of clothes-line prop.
"Will this do?"
Whitaker took it from her and weighed it with anxious judgment.
"A trifle tall, even for me," he allowed. "Still...."
He rose on one foot and tested the staff with his weight. "'Twill do," he decided. "And thank you very much."