WHAT makes the boom go sheering up in the air in that silly way?” Mrs. Massingbyrd asked me.
“It’s trying to gooseneck,” I told her. “And if you would like me to take the tiller——” Now, how foolish this suggestion was, I ought to have known.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Massingbyrd briskly cut me short, pulling the tiller smartly toward her to emphasize her refusal.
The boat jibed, and the next thing we were both in the water. Mrs. Massingbyrd’s shining head came to the surface a few feet from mine. She shook the water from her eyes, gasped for breath once or twice, and then with a magnificent affectation of composure:
“Something told me I ought to wear my bathing suit,” she remarked, reflectively.
“It was vanity told you,” I replied with irritation. Nothing had told me I ought to wear mine. It was just like Lydia Massingbyrd to wear a bathing suit to get capsized in. I’ve never known a woman who so infallibly landed on her feet.
“I think,” she continued, complacently, as we struck out for the shore, not far distant, “I chose a very nice place for spilling us. I know women who would have been capable of doing it in the middle of Long Island Sound!”
“It would have been still more considerate if you’d chosen a spot near the mainland to show your seamanship,” I suggested, with polite sarcasm.
“I thought that all wrecks always took place near Huckleberry Island. I thought that was one of the things one did.” Her voice was a trifle aggrieved, she smiled at me, a smile like a little flickering flame.