Ann was silent. The sense of constraint left her and an odd feeling of contentment took its place. He was no longer cold and distant and aloof—in the mood to dispatch a groom with a message of inquiry! The friend in him was uppermost.
“I think you deserve a thorough good scolding,” he went on presently. “What possessed you to attempt bathing in a rough sea like that? Seriously”—speaking more earnestly. “It was a most foolhardy thing to do.”
Ann’s eyes, goldenly clear in the sunlight, met his frankly.
“I think I went—partly because I was told not to,” she acknowledged, smiling.
His lips twitched in spite of himself.
“Good heavens! What a woman’s reason!”
She nodded.
“I suppose it was. But I never dreamed the waves could be as strong as they were. I felt absolutely helpless to stand up against them, and the ground seemed to be slipping away under my feet all the time, dragging me with it—oh, it was horrible!”—with a shiver of recollection. “And I have to thank you—again—for coming to the rescue!” she resumed more lightly after a moment. “I think I must really be destined to end my days in Davy Jones’s locker—and you keep frustrating the designs of fate!”
“Well, don’t trouble to go out of your way to give me another opportunity,” he advised dryly.
Ann laughed.