The Maker of Opportunities Part 10

"Won't you come over?" shouted Patricia.

"Oh, I'm all right," he returned. "It was the dog I was worried about."

Then for the first time he was aware that the paddle had drifted off and was now floating a hundred yards away.

"I'm sorry, but my paddle is adrift."

So Patricia, amid much barking from the rejuvenated Teddy, came alongside again.

There sat the bedraggled and dripping Crabb in three inches of water, his empty hands upon the gunwales, looking rather foolishly up at the blue eyes that were smiling rather whimsically down.

She could not resist the temptation to banter him. Had she prayed for vengeance, nothing could have been sent to her sweeter than this.

"You look rather--er--glum," she said.

"I'm not," he replied, calmly. "I've not been so happy in months."

"What on earth is there to prevent my sailing off and leaving you?" she laughed.

"Nothing," he said. "I'm all right. I'll swim for the paddle when I'm rested."

"Have you thought I might take that with me, too?" she asked sweetly.

"All right," he laughed, trying to suppress the chattering teeth.

"Somebody'll be along presently."

"Don't be too sure. You're really very much at my mercy."

"You were not always so unkind."

"Mr. Crabb!" Patricia retired in confusion to the tiller. "You're impudent!" She hauled in her sheet and the boat gathered headway.

"Please, Miss Wharton, please!" he shouted. But Patricia did not move from the tiller, and the catboat glided off. He watched her sail down and recover the paddle and then head back toward him.

"Won't you forgive me and take me in?"

"I suppose I must. But I'm sure I'd rather you'd drown. I'm hardly in the mood for coals of fire."

"I am, though," he chattered, "for I'm d--deucedly c--cold."

"You don't deserve it. But if you were drowned I suppose I'd be to blame. I wouldn't have you on my conscience again for anything."

"Then please take me on your boat."

"Will you behave yourself?"

"I'll try."

"And never again refer to--to----"

"Um----"

"Then please come in--out of the wet."

It was toward the end of August when the southeast wind had raised a gray and thunderous sea, that two persons sat under the lee of a rock near Great Head and watched the giant breakers shatter themselves to foam. They sat very close together, and the little they said was drowned in the roar of the elements. But they did not care. They were willing just to sit and watch the fruitless struggles of the swollen waters.

"Won't you tell me," said the girl at last, "about that dinner? Didn't you really ask Mrs. Hollingsworth to send you in with me?"

The man looked amusedly off at the jagged horizon.

"No, I really didn't," he said, and then, after a pause, with a laugh: "but Nick did."

"Whited sepulcher!" said the girl. Another pause. This time the man questioned:

"There is another thing--won't you tell me? About the parasol last summer--did you forget it, really--or--or--just leave it?"

"Mortimer!" she cried, flushing furiously. "I didn't!"

But he a.s.sisted her in hiding her face, smiling down benevolently the while.

"Really? Honestly? Truly?" he said, softly.

"I didn't--I didn't," she repeated.

"Didn't what?" he still persevered.

She looked up at him for a moment, flushed more furiously than before and sought refuge anew. But the m.u.f.fled reply was perfectly distinguishable to the man.

"I--I--_didn't_--forget it."

But the Great Head rocks didn't hear.

Thus Mortimer Crabb, having spent much of his time in making opportunities for other people, had at last succeeded in making one for himself.

He had the pleasure of knowing, too, that he was also making one for Patty--not that this was Miss Wharton's first opportunity, for everyone knew that her rather sedate demeanor concealed a capricious coquetry which she could no more control than she could the music of the spheres.

But this was going to be a different kind of opportunity, for Crabb had decided that not only was she going to be engaged to him, but that when the time came she was going to marry him.

This decision reached, he spent all of his time in convincing her that he was the one man in the world exactly suited to her protean moods. The sum of his possessions had not been made known to her, and he delighted in planning his surprise. So that when the _Blue Wing_ appeared in the harbor, he invited her for a sail in her own catboat, calmly took the helm in spite of her protests, and before she was aware of it, had made a neat landing at his own gangway. Jepson poked his head over the side and welcomed them, grinning broadly, and, following Crabb's inviting gesture, Patricia went up on deck feeling very much like the lady who had married the Lord of Burleigh. Then Jepson gave some mysterious orders and before long she was reclining luxuriously in a deck chair and the _Blue Wing_ was breasting the surges which showed the way to the open sea.

"'All of this,'" quoted Crabb gayly, with a fine gesture which comprehended the whole of the North Atlantic Ocean, "'is mine and thine.'"

"It's very nice of you to be so rich. Why didn't you tell me?" said Patricia.

"Because I had a certain pride in wanting you to like me for myself."

"You think I would have married you for your money?"