"I am humiliated."
"You?"
"Yes; I must have been a model of incivility."
"No; it was I who was in fault, rushing about the country like a jockey riding down everything in sight."
"Who except a fool would have had a fishing-rod trailing half-way across the road?"
"Look here," grumbled Jim, "I can't hold this dory bumping against the side of the boat forever—"
"Don't be impertinent, Jim. Besides apologies never last long. It is only explanations which take time—"
Flint jumped from the gunwale of the sail-boat into the dory, and took the oars. As he headed for shore, he turned his eyes once more to the sail-boat, and the glimpse that he had of [Pg 34] its skipper he carried for long after—the vision of her standing there in the stern, against the stretch of blue water, her soft handkerchief of some red stuff knotted about her throat above the gray jacket, her felt hat thrust up in front above the waves of her hair, and her eyes smiling with frank mirthfulness.