LITMIR.BIZ

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tonight, of course; but beyond that—— The fact is, I do not care to know you, Mr. Kendrick. Please put me ashore and say good-bye."

      A cold fire of resentment burned in Kendrick's eyes as he drove the canoe to the landing with a few skillful strokes. Why had he been so foolish as to tell her his real name? Why didn't she want to know him? Without a word he caught the canoe in one hand and stepped out. He felt along the gunwale to the bow and fastened the painter to an iron ring in the planking, then handed her out safely. He retained his grasp of her hand.

      "A moment ago you dared me to kiss you," he said gravely. "I am not in the habit of taking dares from anybody."

      "Let go my hand at once, sir. You know very well you cannot so far forget yourself as to take such a liberty. I dare you to prove yourself no gentleman."

      "I warn you——!"

      "I dare you!"

      "Very well! On your own head be it, then! The boatman is worthy of his hire," he paraphrased and laughingly he seized her in his arms and kissed her.

      The next instant he received a resounding slap in the face. It had young muscles and indignation behind it and it found him unprepared. He started back automatically, tripped, lost his balance and fell into the water.

      "Oh, you—you miserable—fresh Aleck!" came her mortified cry.

      She lingered only long enough to make sure that he could swim. As he drew himself out of the water the sound of her running feet died out on the pier.

      With chattering teeth Kendrick cast loose, seized his paddle and drove it deep into the water. Ye gods, what a fool! Very angry at himself, he set out across the bay once more, guided by the derisive bawling of the fog-horn at the Eastern Gap.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      "NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS"

      At no time had it been Phil Kendrick's habit to entertain an inflated opinion of his own importance. On occasion he had ridden around the gridiron on the shoulders of idolatrous students; but his modesty had been one of the factors underlying his popularity. Despising conceit in others, he was too prone, perhaps, to take himself to task for those little mistakes which every young man is liable to make from time to time.

      It is safe to say, however, that never in all his life had he arraigned himself upon the carpet of his own condemnation so severely as now while paddling across the bay for the second time within the hour. If the McCorquodale incident earlier in the evening had lowered his opinion of his own judgment he was now ready to concede that he had no judgment whatsoever. It was of little use to tell himself that it served her right, or that she had dared him deliberately to do what he had done. That did not alter the fact that if he ever met her again—it was not likely that he would, of course, but if he did—somewhere, sometime—he had erected a barrier to her good will which would preclude all hope of her friendship. His status in her sight was that of a "miserable fresh Aleck!"

      Thus, as a relief to his feelings and in part to keep warm by exertion, did Phil come home through the fog at headlong pace in a high state of discontent, a veritable bear with a sore head. As he lifted the canoe to its place in the boathouse something pricked his finger, and by the light of a match he found a dollar bill pinned to one of the canoe cushions with a tiny brooch. His hire!—the only reward he had had any right to expect! The sight of these souvenirs did not tend to restore his peace of mind, and there was little mirth in the short laugh which he bestowed upon them as he thrust them into his pocket; yet it is interesting that he looked upon them as souvenirs, even while deciding to dismiss the whole matter permanently from his thoughts.

      The launch was not back yet, he noted. Well, Stinson could go to the devil with it for all he cared! He slammed the boathouse door and strode up the side-street, this mood carrying as far as the picket gate. His hand was on the latch before he realized that the library windows were blurring through the fog with light.

      Had the servants all gone crazy to-night? He went around to the front of the house, and with his face between the slats of the verandah railing, peered through the French windows. Muttering astonishment, he climbed over the railing, fitted his latch-key noiselessly and swung open the double glass doors that gave direct entrance to the room. The slight sound of his entry passed unnoticed by the Honorable Milton Waring, who continued to lean over his desk completely absorbed in a litter of papers.

      But for the heavy odor of stale cigar smoke it would have been easy to suppose that the fog without had crept into the library. The air was blue. Phil's glance swept the disordered room. Three empty whisky glasses stood on the library table. The butts of cigars and innumerable cork-tipped cigarettes lay smothered in gray ashes that spilled untidily in sundry ash-trays. There was a char of burned paper in the open grate where a few coals still glowed redly. The desk was covered with packets of folded papers, held together by rubber bands, and loose sheets upon which much figuring had been done with the blue pencil which his uncle favored. A stock certificate or two peeped from a closed account book.

      Phil looked again at the bowed figure, struck by a laxity of manner that was foreign to the Honorable Milton Waring. His thick iron-gray hair, usually so carefully brushed, was rumpled on end where his fingers had plowed and held his head while he figured with the other hand. He had removed his collar and tossed it aside impatiently; it lay on the floor behind the chair, leaving the tie still hanging loosely around the neck, the end of it twisted over one shoulder. The door in front of which the intruder stood was outside the older man's line of vision; but Phil could see a flushed cheek, and there was an air of dejection in his uncle's attitude quite out of keeping with customary poise.

      The subject of these observations reached abruptly for the decanter on the desk and poured himself a stiff drink of Scotch whisky. The neck tinkled a little tattoo against the glass. He swallowed the liquor neat and shook his head in a spasmodic grimace. The sigh with which he settled back in his chair was one of utter weariness.

      Phil gave a slight cough to announce his presence.

      "Pardon me, Uncle Milt, if I'm intruding, but I didn't know you were in town—— Why, what's wrong?" he ended quickly; for his uncle had sprung from his chair and was clinging to the edge of the desk for support while he stared as if he were gazing at an apparition.

      In truth, quite aside from his quiet entry, the young man's appearance was startling enough. His facial disfigurement achieved a bizarre effect which the condition of his clothes served to heighten. The once jaunty panama hat hung shapelessly about his ears and from beneath it a plaster of blond hair slanted across his forehead rakishly. His collar was a soggy mess, from which depended a dark red string in sorry travesty of a flowing tie. His shirt was soiled with mud, his coat and trousers full of wrinkles.

      "For heaven's sake, boy! What's happened? Train wreck?" He dropped back into his chair, eyeing his nephew in amazement. "Why aren't you at Sparrow Lake with your aunt? Get my wire? Eh? They told me you left this morning——" His voice was hoarse and it trailed away as if the situation embarrassed him and he was not quite sure how to handle it. He stared uncertainly, drumming nervously with his fingers.

      Phil nodded as he sat down in the nearest chair and stared back. The surprise of finding his uncle there was overridden by the new discovery of his evident diffidence, his flushed face, a lack of that self-contained bearing which always had marked him as a man of large affairs. It was his uncle's strict rule, he recalled, never to take a second drink; it was an axiom of the Honorable Milton's that the second drink drew the cork on indiscretion and eventual inebriety. That something had happened which must have disturbed him greatly to make him break this rule was a deduction as simple as the evidence that he had broken it.

      "What about you, Uncle Milt?" suggested Kendrick after a brief explanation of his change of plans—a recital which carefully avoided mention of McCorquodale or the mysterious woman of the fog. "If I had known that Aunt Dolly was going to be alone I wouldn't

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