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CHAPTER X

“Say, Big Bear! Will you take me on the water?”

Merefleet, lounging on the shingle with a pipe and newspaper, looked up with a start and hastened to knock out the half-burnt tobacco on the heel of his boot.

His American friend stood above him, clad in the white linen costume she always wore for boating. She looked very enchanting and very childlike. Merefleet who had seen her last sobbing bitterly in her cousin’s arms, stared up at her with wonder and relief on his face.

She nodded to him. Her eyes were marvellously bright, but he did not ascribe their brilliance to recent tears.

“You don’t look exactly smart,” she said critically. “Hope I don’t intrude?”

“Not a bit.” Merefleet stumbled to his feet and raised his hat. “Pardon my sluggishness! How are you this morning?”

“Fresh as paint,” she returned. “But I’m just dying to get on the water. And Bert has gone off somewhere by himself. I guess you’ll help me, Big Bear. Won’t you?”

Merefleet glanced from the sea to the sun.

“There’s a change coming,” he said. “I will go with you with pleasure. But I think it would be advisable to wait till the afternoon as usual. We shall probably know by then what sort of weather to expect.”

Mab pouted a little.

“We shan’t go at all if we wait,” she declared. “Why can’t we go while the fine weather lasts? I believe you want to back out of it. It’s real lazy of you, Big Bear. You shan’t read, anyhow.”

She took his paper from his unresisting hands, dug a hole in the shingle with vicious energy, and covered it over.

“Now what?” she said, looking up at him with an impudent smile.

“Now,” said Merefleet gravely, “I will take you for a row.”

“Will you? Big Bear, you’re a brick. I’ll put you into my will. No, I won’t, because I haven’t got anything to leave. And you wouldn’t want it if I had. Say, Big Bear! Haven’t you got any friends?”

Merefleet looked surprised at the abrupt question.

“I have one friend in England besides yourself, Miss Ward,” he replied. “His name is Clinton. But he is married and done for.”

“My! What a pity!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t he happy?”

“Oh, yes, I think so. Still, you know, most fellows have to sacrifice something when they marry. He was a war-correspondent. But he has spoilt himself for that.”

“I see.” Mab was prodding the shingle with the end of her sunshade, her face very thoughtful. Suddenly she looked up. “Never get married, Big Bear!” she said vehemently. “It’s the most miserable state in Christendom.”

“Anyone would think you spoke from experience,” said Merefleet, smiling a little.

But Mab did not smile.

“I know a lot, Big Bear,” she said, with a sharp sigh.

Merefleet was silent. His thoughts had gone back to the previous night. He was surprised when she suddenly alluded to the episode.

“There’s that man Ralph Warrender,” she said. “I guess the woman that’s married him thinks he’s A1 and gilt-edged now, poor soul. But he’s just a miserable patchwork mummy really, and there isn’t any white in him–no, not a speck.”

She spoke with such intense, even violent bitterness that Merefleet was utterly astonished. He stood gravely contemplating her flushed, upturned face.

“What has he done to make you say that, I wonder?” he said.

“Nothing to me,” she answered quickly. “Nothing at all to me. But I used to know his first wife. She was a sort of friend of mine. They used to call her the loveliest woman in U.S., Mr. Merefleet. And she belonged to that fiend.”

They began to walk towards the boats through the shifting shingle. Merefleet had nothing to say. There was something in her passionate speech that disturbed him vaguely. She spoke as one whose most sacred personal interests had once been at stake.

“Lucky for her she’s dead, Big Bear,” she said presently, with a side-glance at him. “I’ve never regretted any of my friends less than Mrs. Ralph Warrender. Oh, she was real miserable. I’ve seen her with diamonds piled high in her hair and her face all shining with smiles. And I’ve known all the time that her heart was broken. And when I heard that she was dead, do you know, I was glad–yes, thankful. And I guess Warrender wasn’t sorry. For she hated him.”