grounds that you're Miss Fiske?"

"If you please," she murmured absently, her intent gaze seeking the
distances of the sea.

"Then that's settled," he pursued in accents of satisfaction. "You are
Miss Fiske--Christian name at present unknown to deponent. I am one
Whitaker, as already deposed--baptized Hugh. And we are neighbours. Do
you know, I think this a very decent sort of a world after all?"

"And still"--she returned to the charge--"you haven't told me what you
mean to do, since you refuse my help."

"I mean," he asserted cheerfully, "to sit here, aping Patience on a
monument, until some kind-hearted person fetches me a stick or other
suitable piece of wood to serve as emergency staff. Then I shall make
shift to hobble to your motor-boat and thank you very kindly for
ferrying me home."

"Very well," she said with a business-like air. "Now we understand one
another, I'll see what I can find."

Reviewing their surroundings with a swift and comprehensive glance, she
shook her head in dainty annoyance, stood for an instant plunged in
speculation, then, light-footed, darted from sight round the side of the
bath-house.

He waited, a tender nurse to his ankle, smiling vaguely at the benign
sky.

Presently she reappeared, dragging an eight-foot pole, which, from
certain indications, seemed to have been formerly dedicated to the
office of clothes-line prop.

"Will this do?"

Whitaker took it from her and weighed it with anxious judgment.

"A trifle tall, even for me," he allowed. "Still...."

He rose on one foot and tested the staff with his weight. "'Twill do,"
he decided. "And thank you very much."

But even with its aid, his progress toward the boat necessarily consumed
a tedious time. It was impossible to favour the injured foot to any
great extent. Between occasional halts for rest, Whitaker hobbled with
grim determination, suffering exquisitely but privately. The girl
considerately schooled her pace to his, subjecting him to covert
scrutiny when, as they moved on, his injury interested him exclusively.

He made little or no attempt to converse while in motion; a spirit of
bravado alone, indeed, would have enabled him to pay attention to
anything aside from the problem of the next step; and bravado was a
stranger to his cosmos then, if ever. So she had plenty of opportunity
to make up her mind about him.

If her eyes were a reliable index, she found him at least interesting.
At times their expressi