Another mute and miserable denial.
"I don't believe it! You aren't a bit pea-green. Quite red, on the contrary."
Silence from the victim.
"Besides, you know, you're the seaworthy child," she mocked.
| "'Whose feelings could never be riled. |
| While the porpoises porped |
| And the passengers torped, |
| He sat on the lee rail and smiled.' |
Here's the lee rail. Haven't you a single smile about you anywhere?"
He shook his head with infinite vigor.
"Can't you even speak? Is that the way a Perfect Pig should act?" she persisted, impishly determined to force him out of his extraordinary silence. "Have you made a vow? Or what?"
At that moment the Tyro caught sight of a gold-laced individual advancing upon them. With a stifled groan he turned his back full upon the Wondrous Vision, and at that moment would have been willing to reward handsomely any wave that would have reached up and snatched him into the bosom of the Atlantic.
Behind him he could hear a stifled little gasp, then a stamp of a foot (he shrank with involuntary memory), then retreating steps. In a conquering career Miss Cecily Wayne had never before been snubbed by any male creature. If her wishes could have been transformed into fact, the yearned-for wave might have been spared any trouble; a swifter and more withering death would have been the Tyro's immediate portion.