"As truth," agreed Bertie. "You might retire, you know."
"I won't look," promised the widow, turning her back and peering over
her shoulder. "But is he near my lamb now? Will he, can he save him?"
"Unfortunately, yes, mama," said Caroline.
Bertie and Henry leaned over the rail and watched the rescue, the long,
easy strokes of the swimmer and the amusement on his face as a wave
carried the struggling dog within reach and he grabbed the little woolly
back.
"Saved!" cried Bertie, and turned just in time to grab Mrs. Armitage,
who was also turning to see over the rail, by her fat shoulders and
whirl her around again. "Safe, dear lady, but look the other way. Our
hero is clothed in the seafoam and his own nobility, nothing else."
Henry was already disappearing down the companionway, the yacht was
stopping and the crew standing by on the lower deck to lend assistance
to rescued and rescuer.
The evening was warm and sultry. What little breeze there had been
during the day had gone down with the sun, while the ocean heaved and
moaned in long, green swells and ran softly whispering up the beach and
splashed against the rocks with hardly a flake of foam. The sun,
sinking behind the hills, cast long orange and pink streaks across the
waves, and turned the small white clouds overhead a dainty, rosy mass of
drifting color.
Bartlett and Billy strolled down the winding street of the little
seaside town, out on the pier and stood idly waiting for the evening
mailboat to arrive. Henrietta and the general were coming on the
evening boat to spend the autumn in a small cottage which the general
was pleased to call his "shooting-box." But Bartlett's pleasure at
seeing Henrietta once more was mingled with worry and uneasiness over
Billy and the Watermelon. He smoked thoughtfully and watched Billy
warily, tenderly. She leaned against a pile and gazed over the vast
unrest of the ocean to the distant horizon, with dreaming, unfathomable
eyes. Bartlett knew of whom she was thinking, whom waiting for more and
more eagerly every day now as August drew to a close and still he did
not come. But this evening he had come, he was in the same
neighborhood, drunk and probably hungry. When they met, as they must
and that shortly, would he make a scene, become loud-mouthed, foul,
abusive? It would be hard on Billy, and Bartlett wished vainly that he
could spare her. But it was best that she should know, should
understand fully and with a sudden quick cut it would be over with, the
June madness when one is young and pretty and care-free. Billy would
read her folly in the bleared eyes of a shiftless fool. Yet the boy was
clever in getting out of a tight place, and Bartlett admired cleverness
intensely, not being slow himself when it came to a hard bargain. The
boy had gentle blood in his veins, too, more's the pity. It was simply
a case of a good family gone to seed. Poor little Billy and her puppy
love! A most unfortunate affair, the whole mistaken, unhappy business!
"There comes the _Mary Gloucester_," said Billy, breaking into his
thoughts. She nodded toward the yacht, steaming majestically around the
headland, pennons gaily waving and the bright awning a splash of color
in the afterglow.
"The _Mary Gloucester_," chuckled Bartlett. "That woman hasn't the sense
of her ugly little poodle dog."
"I know," said Billy, "that is why I have always been so afraid of her."
"Why afraid of her?"
"For a mother," explained Billy unfortunately, but characteristically
saying the wrong thing.
Bartlett flushed. "You just admitted that she was a fool. Do you think
I would marry that kind of a woman?"
"Men always do," said Billy. "A fool's bad enough, but a fool and money
are simply irresistible."
"You know too much for your age," said Bartlett coldly.
"I don't exactly know it," blundered Billy. "I just see it."
"Billy, have you ever seen me--"
"Yes, father. That night in the pavilion at the Ainsleys'--"
"That will do, Billy."