"Ah!"
Meramble's white teeth glittered in his black beard. Yes, it was a joke in the very worst possible taste, and before Mrs. Lawrence, too. But he smiled all the same as he uttered the interjection.
The sense of electricity in the clear air suddenly became almost intolerable.
"Damn him!" Meramble was saying to himself, "what's he talking like that for?"
Lawrence sat silent for a few moments, gazing towards the shore. Prudence made an effort to keep up some kind of conversation. Though Rodney terrified her, she was secretly admiring him. She was thinking that she had not known he could be exactly like this.
Lawrence turned from his contemplation of the receding shore to objects nearer.
He rose with the utmost quietness of movement. He stooped slightly, and, notwithstanding the quick and furious warding motion made by Meramble, that gentleman was lifted bodily up, and flung over the boat's side, where he fell splashing into the water.
The boat darted away from him, but not so soon that the two in it could not hear the terrible oath he uttered.
"Oh, Rodney!" cried Prudence, starting from her seat.
"Sit down," said Rodney, calmly, but his face was not quite steady. Now that his anger had done something to satisfy itself, he must begin to feel the reaction in some way.