Part 50

"I registered your boat in my name," I said calmly, "and Starr thinks you wouldn't understand."

She threw up her head, flushing. "I don't understand."

"It gives us the right to use the flag of my club."

"We could have got on without it."

"Often with grave inconvenience."

"I would have risked that."

"Forgive me, but amateurs are always ready to take risks."

(At this moment I became aware that Starr had slipped away.)

"Isn't it rather late," she flashed at me, "to ask my forgiveness for--anything?"

"It was a mere civility," I answered with equal insolence. "I've done nothing for which I've felt the need of your forgiveness, Miss Van Buren; but if you think I have, pray tell me once for all what it was, that I may defend myself."

"You don't feel," she echoed, "that you've done anything for which you need my forgiveness? Oh, then you're more hardened than I thought. I hoped that by this time you were repenting."

"Repenting of what?"

"Of everything. Of--putting yourself in your present position, among other things."

"You mean in the position of your skipper? I may say, that if I haven't repented, it isn't your fault. But, really, I've been so busy trying to make myself useful to the party in more ways than one, that I've had no time for repentance."

"Oh, you have made yourself useful," she had the grace to admit. "If--it hadn't been for the beginning, I--I should have been grateful. You know things which none of the rest of us know. You've shown us sights which without you we should never have seen or heard of. But as it is, how can I, why should I, be grateful? It's only for the sake of the others, and their pleasure, that I----"

"So you said before," I broke in. "But now I refuse to accept toleration from you--we won't say consideration, for that's too warm a word--for the sake of others. The boat is yours. I am your skipper. If, after serving you as well as I could for a week, you wish me to go, I will go."

She stood and stared at me from under lashes meant only for sweet looks.

"You will go?"

"Certainly. This moment. I only wait your word." I heard myself saying it; and in a way I was sincere, though I was the same man who, only a few minutes since, had vowed to do anything rather than let the trip end. Of course I would have to go now, if she told me to go. But I knew that I should not go. As skipper, I was her servant, if she chose to give me the name; but as a man I felt myself her master.

"I--I--" she faltered, and I saw her throat flutter. "You're putting me in a horrid position. We--I thought we'd settled this matter, things being as they are."

"Not at all," said I. "Nothing was settled."

"You're Mr. Starr's friend, and I can't send you away."

"You can, easily," I replied. "And since that appears to be your only reason for not doing so, I'll not wait for your orders to go. Good-by, Miss Van Buren, I'll do my best to get you another skipper, a professional this time."

I moved a step away, and my blood was beating fast. Everything depended on the next instant.

"Stop! Please stop," she said.

I stopped, and looked at her coldly.

For a moment we stood regarding each other in silence, for it seemed that, having detained me, she could think of nothing more to say. But suddenly she broke out, with a fierce little stamp of the foot.

"Oh! Sometimes I can understand why it was that Philip liked to torture the Dutch."