CROSS PURPOSES
An odor of coffee was wafted through the cracks around the cabin door.
In a little while Lorna called him.
"I've made a hot drink, Ralph," she said. "Just as soon as I get my
clothing dry you must come down and change."
"Thanks, Lorna," Endicott said, accepting the cup of coffee. "But I
don't need to. I didn't take a header into the briny as you did. You'd
better put on my oilskins. Your dress won't be fit to wear."
He had removed his shoes and socks and rolled up the legs of his
trousers. In this free-and-easy costume he could the better get about
the wet boat. He swabbed out the cockpit and set the waterproof covered
cushions on their edges to dry. He wiped off the machinery with a
handful of waste, and tried the spark. The mechanism of the _Fenique_
seemed to have suffered but little from the battering of the heavy seas.
The clouds scattered quickly. The sun appeared again, low hung in the
west and of a golden-red--prophesying that old weather-wise doggerel:
"Red at night
Sailors' delight."
The slate-colored seas outside the harbor still ran high, but they
heaved now without breaking into foam. Their rumbling thunder against
the breakwater was more subdued; no longer did the fierce insistence of
the black squall mark the sound of the surf. The brief tempest had
winged its way out to sea.
"Shall we start soon, Ralph?" asked Lorna, appearing from the cubby in
the mannish apparel he had suggested.
"If you are not afraid that it is still too rough."
"Nonsense! I'm not afraid with _you_," she said with a frankness that
secretly pleased him. She seemed quite unconscious that her words
marked a comparison of Conway Degger and Ralph. She added: "The
_Fenique_ is a good boat."
"We'll try it, then," Ralph said cheerfully and without looking directly
at her.
But she was worth looking at! With her glossy curls banded with one of
Ralph's old neckties that she had found below, her dark and glowing face
was more piquant than usual. The oilskins swathing her figure made it
seem veritably boyish.
She, too, was barefooted, and her tiny, high-arched feet were as white
as milk. Ralph looked at them shyly; but Lorna seemed quite unconscious
of his scrutiny.
They did not speak of Conway Degger. Yet Ralph thought--it was a
poignant flash in his mind--that the girl had been just as unconsciously
frank with Degger as she was with him. Was she not too old now to play
about with men, like the little tomboy she was wont to be?
Never until Degger had come into their life had this thought ruffled
Ralph's tranquillity. Surely Lorna Nicholet was a woman grown. She
should leave off childish things.
Yet she was such a bewitching morsel of a girl! Ralph moved nervously.
He cast another glance at those wondrously white, blue-veined insteps.
She was so slim, yet perfectly formed! The ankles sticking out of the
rolled-up legs of the oilcloth trousers were wonderfully sculptured.
She sat on the bench with her ankles crossed before her, for all the
world like a thoughtless boy. Nevertheless her sex-charm took hold upon
Ralph Endicott's senses as it never had before. "Why," he told himself,
"what a sweet wife Lorna would be for the man who wooed and won her!"
It was sacrilege for a fellow of Conny Degger's kind to be accorded even
the most innocent association with her!
"She's nothing but a child in thought," Ralph told himself. "She's had
too much freedom. Or have I grown up in this last year while she has
remained just what she looks to be--a little, winsome child?"
Ralph Endicott should have looked twice, perhaps. As he turned
determinedly away the girl shot him a roguish glance from under her
tumbled curls. Then she drew in the tiny feet, and the voluminous
trouser-legs fell over and hid them.
Ralph did not understand the new feelings stirring within him. Without
another word or glance he started the engine and steered the motor-boat
for the narrow entrance to Lower Trillion Harbor.
The sea was extremely choppy at the harbor mouth. The motor-boat danced
about, her propeller wiggling wildly out of the water more than half the
time. But Lorna expressed no perturbation. She only clung to the rail
with both hands, and when a billow chanced to break and dash a bucket of
water over her, she laughed aloud.
"Plucky kid!" thought Ralph with pride. "There never was a girl to beat
her--never!"
Yet he had by no means forgotten how unkindly she had treated him.
There was that time back there in the late winter when they had been
cast upon the hospitality of the lightkeeper and his sister. Ralph
could not overlook that occasion.
"If she thinks she can pick me up and throw me away again, like an old
glove and just as she pleases, she's a lot mistaken," the young man told
himself. "I believe Lorna is a born flirt."
He could not really harden his heart toward his little chum. But he
told himself he was not blind to her faults. He had always excused her
waywardness, even of late. And now what Tobias had said about the
Nicholets' financial trouble made Ralph feel even more consideration for
the girl.
Of course Miss Ida and John Nicholet were particularly desirous that
Lorna should marry Ralph, especially in view of the family's misfortune.
And if Ralph did not marry her the Nicholets might make it very
unpleasant for Lorna.
"I'll say they will," sighed Ralph. "She doesn't know about their
poverty, poor girl. They are covering it up all right. But it is going
to put us both in a mighty tight corner. Lorna can't marry a poor man
in any case. Why! that is preposterous to consider even. But if she
doesn't favor me--and heaven knows she doesn't--how will she ever square
it with her family? They have never given her a chance to meet the
right chaps.
"Great grief! Do I want to marry Lorna or not? I wonder!"
He cast another glance at her over his shoulder. She still sat on the
bench. She had shaken the curls over her face, and her red lips were
pursed in a most adorable pout.
Ralph sighed hugely, shrugged his shoulders, and looked forward again.
It certainly was a puzzle!
Suddenly he saw something that brought a cry from his lips. Lorna
jumped up and ran to him, clinging to his arm and pressing close against
him as she looked over his shoulder.
"Oh! do you see it, Ralph?" she cried.
He pointed. The dory heaved into view again on another billow--a dark
patch upon the slate-colored sea.
"Can we catch it?" breathed Lorna in his ear, a curl brushing his
flushing cheek.
"To be sure," and he moved aside. "You take hold here. She doesn't
kick much. Steady now!"
"Oh!" she pouted, "I can manage the old wheel well enough," and she
crowded in beside him.
She had rolled up the sleeves of his storm jacket, and her little brown
hands gripped the wheelspokes in a most capable fashion. Ralph stepped
back and allowed her to take his place. He grew cool again and grinned
to himself. She certainly was one plucky girl!
He had no idea that he had overlooked a chance that perhaps would never
be offered to him again.
He got a bucket from below and then coiled down a length of halyard and
held the end of it in readiness as Lorna brought the _Fenique_ rubbing
alongside the wallowing dory.
Ralph went over the side, carrying the rope and bucket with him and
stood knee deep in water in the dory's bottom. He bent on the line and
gestured to the girl to bear off so as to drag the dory astern of the
motor-boat. Then he went to work to bail out with the bucket.
This was a hard fight at first, for the waves were still boisterous.
Every now and then one broke over the dory and came near to filling it
as full as it was when Ralph got aboard.
But the young fellow persevered. If he possessed one characteristic
stronger than another, it was stubbornness. At this juncture it proved
to be a virtue. He plied the bucket steadily, and at last lowered the
water in the dory so that he could afford to take breath.
"Good boy, Ralphie," shouted Lorna, down wind, and he looked up to see
her elfin face all asmile again for him. He waved his hand cheerily.
"Shall I tune her up a little?" she asked.
"Little at a time, Kid! That's the boy!"
He had spoken to her that way ten years before when they were in the
middle of some adventurous escapade. Lorna flushed and turned away her
face again. More than a pout expressed her vexation now. Ralph did not
show a proper appreciation of her "grown-upness." She had been for the
moment too kind to him!
So after that, and when he had bailed the dory completely and had come
inboard, Lorna snubbed him. Her fluctuating attitude certainly puzzled
the young man.
"Now what have I done?" he secretly wondered.
But as she left the wheel to him without speaking and went to sit down
alone in the stern of the _Fenique_, he did not urge conversation upon
her. They sailed into Clinkerport Bay, and so around to the cove beside
the lighthouse, both about as cheerful as had been their wont when
together during the past few weeks.
Tobias came down to the shore to hail them.
"I give it as my opinion," the lightkeeper said, "that you sandpipers
air all lackin' in good sense. 'Tis a mystery to me how you come to get
raised to the age you be without getting drowned a dozen times over!"
"I was born to be hung," Ralph told him. "The sea isn't wet enough to
drown me."
"But you've no business riskin' Lorny's life in your tom-fool v'y'ges."
Ralph did not even bother to deny the lightkeeper's charge. He snubbed
the motor-boat to the mooring buoy and then sculled Lorna ashore in the
dory. She still wore his oilskins and was bare-footed, but carried her
dress over her arm.
"I'll run up to the light to dress," she said. "In any case I must see
Mr. Degger for a moment."
[Illustration: "I'll run up to the light to dress," she said.]
"Your eyesight will have to be pretty average good, then," drawled
Tobias.
"Why?" she asked, hesitating.
"He's left."
"Why, he was with us down at Lower Trillion!"
"Ya-as. I know. He come back up here with Zeke in the automobile,
changed his clothes, packed his sea chist, and went on with Zeke to
Clinkerport. Heppy's fair put out. She'd made a heap of fishballs for
supper. Cal'late you an' Ralph better stop an' help us eat 'em, Lorny."
"Thank you. As Mr. Degger has gone I will go home immediately," the
girl said. "Good evening, Mr. Bassett." She did not even cast a
scornful glance at Ralph.
"Oh, sugar!" was Tobias's comment.