"Pshaw!" he grumbled. "I wish they'd waited a minute longer."
"Well, I don't!" cried his companion tremulously.
The boy looked across the canoe at her. Never, in the twenty years he had known Leslie Graham intimately, had he before seen her daunted.
"What's up?" he demanded. "You're not losing your nerve, Leslie?"
"No, I'm not!" she snapped, trying desperately to hide an unexpected quaver in her voice. "But—"
"You're not chilled, are you?"
"No. Not much."
"Nor cramped?"
"No."
"Well, you're all right then. Goodness, you've been in the water hours longer than this, heaps of times. Cheer up, old girl, you're all right. What's the matter, anyhow?"