He looked away in complete confusion, and felt his face burning to the temples.
"I beg your pardon," he mumbled unhappily.
He essayed to walk. Twenty feet and more of treacherous, dry, yielding sand separated them from the flight of steps that ascended the bluff. It proved no easy journey; and its difficulty was complicated by his determination to spare the woman as much as he could. Gritting his teeth, he grinned and bore without a murmur until, the first stage of the journey accomplished, he was able to grasp a handrail at the bottom of the stairs and breathe devout thanks through the medium of a gasp.
"Shall we rest a bit?" the woman asked, compa.s.sionate, ignoring now the impertinence she had chosen to resent a few moments ago.
"Think I can manage--thanks," he said, panting a little. "It"ll be easier now--going up. I shan"t need help."
He withdrew his arm, perhaps not without regret, but a.s.suredly with a comforting sense of decent consideration for her, as well as with some slight and intrinsically masculine satisfaction in the knowledge that he was overcoming her will and her resistance.
"No--honestly!" he insisted. "These handrails make it easy."
"But please be sure," she begged. "Don"t take any chances. _I_ don"t mind...."
"Let me demonstrate, then."
The stairway was comfortably narrow; he had only to grasp a rail with either hand, and half lift himself, half hop up step by step. In this manner he accomplished the ascent in excellent, if hopelessly ungraceful, style. At the top he limped to a wooden seat beside one of the bath-houses and sat down with so much grim decision in his manner that it was evident to the woman the moment she rejoined him. But he mustered a smile to meet her look of concern, and shook his head.
"Thus far and no farther."
"Oh, but you must not be stubborn!"
"I mean to be--horrid stubborn. In fact, I don"t mind warning you that there"s a famous strain of mule in the Whitaker make-up."
She was, however, not to be diverted; and her fugitive frown bespoke impatience, if he were any judge.
"But seriously, you must--"
"Believe me," he interrupted, "if I am to retain any vestige of self-respect, I must no longer make a crutch of you."
"But, really, I don"t see why--!"
"Need I remind you I am a man?" he argued lightly. "Even as you are a very charming woman...."
The frown deepened while she conned this utterance over.
"How do you mean me to interpret that?" she demanded, straightforward.
"The intention was not uncomplimentary, perhaps," he said gravely; "though the clumsiness is incontestable. As for the rest of it--I"m not trying to flirt with you, if that"s what _you_ mean--yet. What I wished to convey was simply my intention no longer to bear my masculine weight upon a woman--either you or any other woman."
A smile contended momentarily with the frown, and triumphed brilliantly.
"I beg your pardon, I"m sure. But do you mind telling me what you do mean to do?"
"No."
"Well, then--?" The smile was deepening very pleasantly.
"I mean to ask you," he said deliberately, taking heart of this favourable manifestation: "to whom am I indebted--?"
To his consternation the smile vanished, as though a cloud had sailed before the sun. Doubt and something strongly resembling incredulity informed her glance.
"Do you mean to say you don"t _know_?" she demanded after a moment.
"Believe me, I"ve no least idea--"
"But surely Mr. Ember must have told you?"
"Ember seemed to be labouring under the misapprehension that the Fiske place was without a tenant."
"Oh!"
"And I"m sure he was sincere. Otherwise it"s certain wild horses couldn"t have dragged him back to New York."
"Oh!" Her tone was thoughtful. "So he has gone back to town?"
"Business called him. At least such was the plausible excuse he advanced for depriving himself of my exclusive society."
"I see," she nodded--"I see...."
"But aren"t you going to tell me? Or ought I to prove my human intelligence by a.s.suming on logical 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 a.s.serted 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."