"Ay, ay, sir! It's forgot. Only perhaps you'll let me apologize again, underscored, now I understand. Honest, I'm no end sorry, Larry."
The other nodded acceptance of the underscored apology and again silence had its way.
As they landed Ted fastened the canoe and for a moment the two brothers stood side by side in the starlight. Larry put out his hand. Ted took it. Their eyes met, said more than any words could have expressed.
"Thank you, Ted. You've been great—helped a lot."
Larry's voice was a little unsteady, his eyes were full of trouble and shame.
"Ought to, after starting the conflagration," said Ted. "I'll attend to the general explanations. You go to Ruth."
More than one person had wondered at the mysterious disappearance of the two Holidays. It is quite usual, and far from unexpected, when two young persons of the opposite sex drift off somewhere under the stars on a summer night without giving any particular account of themselves; but one scarcely looks for that sort of social—or unsocial—eccentricity from two youths, especially two brothers. Nobody but Ruth and Tony, and possibly shrewd-eyed Sue, suspected a quarrel, but everybody was curious and ready to burst into interrogation upon the simultaneous return of the two young men which was quite as sudden as their vanishing had been.
"Larry and I had a wager up," announced Ted to Sue in a perfectly clear, distinct voice which carried across the length of the small hall now that the music was silent. "He said he could paddle down to the point, current against him, faster than I could paddle back, current with me. We took a notion to try it out tonight. Please forgive us, Susanna, my dear. A Holiday is a creature of impulse you know."
Sue made a little face at the speaker. She was quite sure he was lying about the wager, but she was a good hostess and played up to his game.
"You don't deserve to be forgiven, either of you," she sniffed. "Especially Larry who never comes to parties and when he does has to go off and do a silly thing like that. Who won though? I will ask that." She smiled at Ted and he grinned back.