The girl's spirits were returning. "Why not?" she asked teasingly. "It wouldn't be fair to keep such a gallant rescue a secret."
"Oh, please don't!" cried Roderick in dismay.
"But it would make such a nice column for The Chronicle," said the girl demurely. "I really can't promise, Fred. Tom Allen would give me ten dollars for it, I am sure."
"If you dare!" cried the young man wrathfully. "I'd never hear the end of it. And your mother would never let you out on the water again, you know that, Les," he added threateningly.
"That's so," she admitted. "Well, I'll see, Freddy. Cheer up. If I do tell I promise to make you the hero of the adventure."
She waved her hand to him laughingly, as Roderick's long strokes sent them skimming away over the darkening water. When they were beyond earshot, she turned to her rescuer.
"It's all right to joke about it now," she said, her tone tremulous, "but it was beginning to be anything but a joke. I—I do believe— Why, I just know that you saved my life, Roderick McRae. And there is one person I am going to tell, I don't care who objects, and that's my father. And you'll hear from him; for he thinks, the poor mistaken man, that his little Leslie is the whole thing!"
And even though Roderick protested vigorously, he could not help feeling that it would be a great stroke of good fortune to have Algonquin's richest and most powerful man feel he was in his debt.