The two youths faced each other. Larry was still white, and his sombre eyes blazed with half subdued fires. He looked anything but hospitable to advances, however well meant.
"Better quit," he advised slowly in a queer, quiet voice which Ted knew was quiet only because Larry was making it so by a mighty effort of will. "I'm not responsible just now. We'll both be sorry if you don't leave me alone."
"I won't quit, Larry. I can't. It was my fault. Confound it, old man! Please listen. I didn't mean to make you mad. Come ashore and punch my fool head if it will make you feel any better."
Still Larry said nothing, just sat hunched in a heap, running his fingers over the handle of the paddle. He no longer even looked at Ted. His mouth was set at its stubbornest.
Ted rushed on, desperately in earnest, entirely sincere in his willingness to undergo any punishment, himself, to help Larry.
"Honest, I didn't mean to make trouble," he pleaded. "I just picked her up and made her dance on impulse, though she told me she wouldn't and couldn't. I never thought for a minute you would care. Maybe it was a mean trick. I can see it might have looked so, but I didn't intend it that way. Gee, Larry! Say something. Don't swallow it all like that. Get it out of your system. I'd rather you'd give me a dozen black eyes than sit still and feel like the devil."
Larry looked up then. His face relaxed its sternness a little. Even the hottest blaze of wrath could not burn quite so fiercely when exposed to a generous penitence like his young brother's. He understood Ted was working hard not only to make peace but to spare himself the sharp battle with the demon which, as none knew better that Larry Holiday, did, indeed, half kill.
"Cut it, Ted," he ordered grimly. "'Nough said. I haven't the slightest desire to give you even one black eye at present, though I may as well admit if you had been in my hands five minutes ago something would have smashed."
"Don't I know it?" Ted grinned a little. "Gee, I thought my hour had struck!"
"What made you come after me then?"