“The tide is going out,” he admitted.
“If we should get caught on these flats,” she began, with rising indignation.
“We should have to stay till the tide turned.”
She looked wildly about for aid. If there were a row-boat anywhere within hail, she could be taken to Jocelyn’s in that. But they were quite alone on those lifeless waters.
Libby got out a pair of heavy oars from the bottom of the boat, and, setting the rowlocks on either side, tugged silently at them.
The futile effort suggested an idea to her which doubtless she would not have expressed if she had not been lacking, as she once said, in a sense of humor.
“Why don’t you whistle for a wind?”
He stared at her in sad astonishment to make sure that she was in earnest, and then, “Whistle!” he echoed forlornly, and broke into a joyless laugh.
“You knew the chances of delay that I took in asking to come with you,” she cried, “and you should have warned me. It was ungenerous—it was ungentlemanly!”
“It was whatever you like. I must be to blame. I suppose I was too glad to have you come. If I thought anything, I thought you must have some particular errand at Leyden. You seemed anxious to go, even if it stormed.”