Rufus the Red sat on the edge of his boat with his hands clasped between his knees, staring at nothing. His nets were spread to dry in the sun; the morning's work was done. Most of the other men had lounged into their cottages for the midday meal, but the massive red giant sitting on the shore in the merciless heat of noon did not seem to be thinking of physical needs.
His eyes under their shaggy red brows were fixed with apparent concentration upon his red, hairy legs. Now and then his bare toes gripped the moist sand almost savagely, digging deep furrows; but for the most part he sat in solid contemplation.
There was only one other man within sight along that sunny stretch of sand—a small, dark man with a shaggy, speckled beard and quick, twinkling eyes. He was at work upon a tangled length of tarred rope, pulling and twisting with much energy and deftness to straighten out the coil, so that it leaped and writhed in his hands like a living thing.
He whistled over the job cheerily and tunelessly, glancing now and again with a keen, birdlike intelligence towards the motionless figure twenty yards away that sat with bent head broiling in the sun. His task seemed a hopeless one, but he tackled it as if he enjoyed it. His brown hands worked with a will. He was plainly one to make the best of things, and not to be lightly discouraged—a man of resolution, as the coxswain of the Spear Point lifeboat needed to be.
After ten minutes of unremitting toil he very suddenly ceased to whistle and sent a brisk hail across the stretch of sand that intervened between himself and the solitary fisherman on the edge of the boat.
"Hi—Rufus—Rufus—ahoy!"
The fiery red head turned in his direction without either alacrity or interest. The fixed eyes came out of their trance-like study and took in the blue-jerseyed, energetic figure that worked so actively at the knotted hemp. There was something rather wonderful about those eyes. They were of the deep, intense blue of a spirit-fed flame—the blue of the ocean when a storm broods below the horizon.
He made no verbal answer to the hail; only after a moment or two he got slowly to his feet and began leisurely to cross the sand.
The older man did not watch his progress. His brown, lined face was bent again over his task.
Rufus the Red drew near and paused. "Want anything?"
He spoke from his chest, in a voice like a deep-toned bell. His arms hung slack at his sides, but the muscles stood out on them like ropes.
The coxswain of the lifeboat gave his head a brief, upward jerk without looking at him. "That curly-topped chap staying at The Ship," he said, "he came messing round after me this morning, wanted to know would I take him out with the nets one day. I told him maybe you would."
"What did you do that for?" said Rufus.
The coxswain shot him a brief and humorous glance. "I always give you the plums if I can, my boy," he said. "I said to him, 'Me and my son, we're partners. Going out with him is just the same as going out with me, and p'raps a bit better, for he's got the better boat.' So he sheered off, and said maybe he'd look you up in the evening."
"Maybe I shan't be there," commented Rufus.
The coxswain chuckled, and lashed out an end of rope, narrowly missing his son's brawny legs. "He's not such a soft one as he looks, that chap," he observed. "Not by no manner of means. Do you know what Columbine thinks of him?"
"How should I know?" said Rufus.
He stooped with an abrupt movement that had in it a hint of savagery, and picked up the end of rope that lay jerking at his feet.
"Tell you what, Adam," he said. "If that chap values his health he'll keep clear of me and my boat."
Everyone called the coxswain Adam, even his son and partner, Rufus the Red. No two men could have formed a more striking contrast than they, but their partnership was something more than a business relation. They were friends—friends on a footing of equality, and had been such ever since Rufus—the giant baby who had cost his mother her life—had first closed his resolute fist upon his father's thumb.
That was five-and-twenty years ago now, and for eighteen of those years the two had dwelt alone together in their cottage on the cliff in complete content. Then—seven years back—Adam the coxswain had unexpectedly tired of his widowed state and taken to himself a second wife.
This was Mrs. Peck, of The Ship, a widow herself of some years' standing, plump, amiable, prosperous, who in marrying Adam would have gladly opened her doors to Adam's son also had the son been willing to avail himself of her hospitality.
But Rufus had preferred independence in the cottage of his birth, and in this cottage he had lived alone since his father's defection.
It was a dainty little cottage, perched in an angle of the cliff, well apart from all the rest and looking straight down upon the great Spear Point. He tended the strip of garden with scrupulous care, and it made a bright spot of colour against the brown cliff-side. A rough path, steep and winding, led up from the beach below, and about half-way up a small gate, jealously padlocked in the owner's absence, guarded Rufus's privacy. He never invited any one within that gate. Occasionally his father would saunter up with his evening pipe and sit in the little porch of his old home looking through the purple clematis flowers out to sea while he exchanged a few commonplace remarks with his son, who never broke his own silence unless he had something to say. But no other visitor ever intruded there.
Rufus had acquired the reputation of a hermit, and it kept all the rest at bay. He had lived his own life for so long that solitude had grown upon him as moss clings to a stone. He did not seem to feel the need of human companionship. He lived apart.
Sometimes, indeed, he would go down to The Ship in the evening and lounge in the bar with the rest, but even there his solitude still wrapped him round. He never expanded, however genial the atmosphere.
The other men treated him with instinctive respect. He was powerful enough to thrash any two of them, and no one cared to provoke him to wrath. For Rufus in anger was a veritable mad bull.
"Leave him alone! He's not safe!" was the general advice and warning of his fellows, and none but Adam ever interfered with him.
Just recently, however, Adam had begun to take a somewhat quizzical interest in the welfare of his son. It had been an established custom ever since his second marriage that Rufus should eat his Sunday dinner at the family table down at The Ship. Mrs. Peck—Adam's wife was never known by any other title, just as the man's own surname had dropped into such disuse that few so much as knew what it was—had made an especial point of this, and Rufus had never managed to invent any suitable excuse for refusing. He never remained long after the meal was eaten. When all the other fisher-lads were walking the cliffs with their own particular lasses, Rufus was wont to trudge back to his hermitage and draw his mantle of solitude about him once more. He had never walked with any lass. Whether from shyness or surliness, he had held consistently aloof from such frivolous pastimes. If a girl ever cast a saucy look his way the brooding blue eyes never seemed aware of it. In speech with womenkind he was always slow and half-reluctant. That his great bull-like physique could by any means be an object of admiration was a possibility that he never seemed to contemplate. In fact, he seemed expectant of ridicule rather than appreciation.
In his boyhood he had fought several tough fights with certain lads who had dared to scoff at his red hair. Sam Jefferson, who lived down on the quay, still bore the marks of one such battle in the absence of two front teeth. But he did not take affront from womenkind. He looked over their heads, and went his way in massive unconcern.
But lately a change had come into his life—such a change as made Adam's shrewd dark eyes twinkle whenever they glanced in his son's direction, comprehending that the days of Rufus's tranquillity were ended.
A witch had come to live at The Ship, such a witch as had never before danced along the Spear Point sands. Her name was Maria Peck, and she was the daughter of Mrs. Peck's late lamented husband's vagabond brother—"a seafaring man and a wastrel if ever there was one," as Mrs. Peck was often heard to declare. He had picked up with and eventually married a Spanish pantomime girl up London way, so Mrs. Peck's information went, and Maria had been the child of their union.
No one called her Maria. Her mother had named her Columbine, and Columbine she had become to all who knew her. Her mother dying when she was only three, Columbine had been left to the sole care of her wastrel father. And he, then a skipper of a small cargo steamer plying across the North Sea, had placed her in the charge of a spinster aunt who kept an infants' school in a little Kentish village near the coast. Here, up to the age of seventeen, Columbine had lived and been educated; but the old schoolmistress had worn out at last, and on her death-bed had sent for Mrs. Peck, as being the girl's only remaining relative, her father having drifted out of her ken long since.
Mrs. Peck had nobly risen to the occasion. She had no daughter of her own; she could do with a daughter. But when she saw Columbine she sucked up her breath.
"My, but she'll be a care!" was her verdict.
"She don't know—how lovely she is," the dying woman had whispered. "Don't tell her!"
And Mrs. Peck had staunchly promised to keep the secret, so far as lay in her power.
That had happened six months before, and Columbine was out of mourning now. She had come into the Spear Point community like a shy bird, a little slip of a thing, upright as a dart, with a fashion of holding her head that kept all familiarity at bay. But the shyness had all gone now. The girlish immaturity was fast vanishing in soft curves and tender lines. And the beauty of her!—the beauty of her was as the gold of a summer morning breaking over a pearly sea.
She was a creature of light and laughter, but there were in her odd little streaks of unconsidered impulse that testified to a passionate soul. She would flash into a temper over a mere trifle, and then in a moment flash back into mirth and amiability.
"You can't call her bad-tempered," said Mrs. Peck. "But she's sharp—she's certainly sharp."
"Ay, and she's got a will of her own," commented Adam. "But she's your charge, missus, not mine. It's my belief you'll find her a bit of a handful before you've done. But don't you ask me to interfere! It's none o' my job."
"Lor' bless you," chuckled Mrs. Peck, "I'd as soon think of asking Rufus!"
Adam grunted at this light reference to his son. "Rufus ain't such a fool as he looks," he rejoined.
"Lor' sakes! Whoever said he was?" protested the equable Mrs. Peck. "I've a great respect for Rufus. It wasn't that I meant—not by any manner o' means."
What she had meant did not transpire, and Adam did not pursue the subject to inquire. He also had a respect for Rufus.
It was not long after that brief conversation that he began to notice a change in his son. He made no overtures of friendship to the dainty witch at The Ship, but he took the trouble to make himself extremely respectable when he made his weekly appearance there. He kept his shag of red hair severely cropped. He attired himself in navy serge, and wore a collar.
Adam's keen eyes took in the change and twinkled. Columbine's eyes twinkled too. She had begun by being almost absurdly shy in the presence of the young fisherman who sat so silently at his father's table, but that phase had wholly passed away. She treated him now with a kindly condescension, such as she might have bestowed upon a meek-souled dog. All the other men—with the exception of Adam, whom she frankly liked—she overlooked with the utmost indifference. They were plainly lesser animals than dogs.
"She'll look high," said Mrs. Peck. "The chaps here ain't none of her sort."
And again Adam grunted.
He was fond of Columbine, took her out in his boat, spun yarns for her, gave her such treasures from the sea as came his way—played, in fact, a father's part, save that from the very outset he was very careful to assume no authority over her. That responsibility was reserved for Mrs. Peck, whose kindly personality made the bare idea seem absurd.
And so to a very great extent Columbine had run wild. But the warm responsiveness of her made her easy to manage as a general rule, and Mrs. Peck's government was by no means exacting.
"Thank goodness, she's not one to run after the men!" was her verdict after the first six months of Columbine's sojourn.
That the men would have run after her had they received the smallest encouragement to do so was a fact that not one of them would have disputed. But with dainty pride she kept them at a distance, and none had so far attempted to cross the invisible boundary that she had so decidedly laid down.
And then with the summer weather had come the stranger—had come Montagu Knight. Young, handsome, and self-assured, he strolled into The Ship one day for tea, having tramped twelve miles along the coast from Spearmouth, on the other side of the Point. And the next day he came again to stay.
He had been there for nearly three weeks now, and he seemed to have every intention of remaining. He was an artist, and the sketches he made were numerous and—like himself—full of decision. He came and went among the fishermen's little thatched cottages, selecting here, refusing there, exactly according to fancy.
They had been inclined to resent his presence at first—it was certainly no charitable impulse that moved Adam to call him "the curly-topped chap"—but now they were getting used to him. For there was no gainsaying the fact that he had a way with him, at least so far as the women-folk of the community were concerned.
He could keep Mrs. Peck chuckling for an hour at a time in the evening, when the day's work was over. And Columbine—Columbine had a trill of laughter in her voice whenever she spoke to him. He liked to hear her play the guitar and sing soft songs in the twilight. Adam liked it too. He was wont to say that it reminded him of a young blackbird learning to sing. For Columbine was as yet very shy of her own talent. She kept in the shallows, as it were, in dread of what the deep might hold.
Knight was very kind to her, but he was never extravagant in his praise. He was quite unlike any other man of her acquaintance. His touch was always so sure. He never sought her out, though he was invariably quite pleased to see her. The dainty barrier of pride that fenced her round did not exist for him. She did not need to keep him at a distance. He could be intimate without being familiar.
And intimate he had become. There was no disputing it. From the first, with his easy savoir-faire, he had waived ceremony, till at length there was no ceremony left between them. He treated her like a lady. What more could the most exacting demand?
And yet Adam continued to call him "the curly-topped chap," and turned him over to his son Rufus when he requested permission to go out in his boat.
And Rufus—Rufus turned with a gesture of disgust after the utterance of his half-veiled threat, and spat with savage emphasis upon the sand.
Adam uttered a chuckle that was not wholly unsympathetic, and began deftly to coil the now disentangled rope.
"Do you know what I'd do—if I was in your place?" he said.
Rufus made a sound that was strictly noncommittal.
Adam's quick eyes flung him a birdlike glance. "Why don't you come along to The Ship and smoke a pipe with your old father of an evening?" he said. "Once a week's not enough, not, that is, if you—" He broke off suddenly, caught by a whistle that could not be resisted.
Rufus was regarding the horizon with those brooding eyes of vivid blue.
Abruptly Adam ceased to whistle. "When I was a young chap," he said, "I didn't keep my courting for Sundays only. I didn't dress up, mind you. That weren't my way. But I'd go along in my jersey and invite her out for a bit of a cruise in the old boat. They likes a cruise, Rufus. You try it, my boy! You try it!"
The rope lay in an orderly coil at his feet, and he straightened himself, rubbing his hands on his trousers. His son remained quite motionless, his eyes still fixed as though he heard not.
Adam stood up beside him, shrewdly alert. He had never before ventured to utter words of counsel on this delicate subject. But having started, he was minded to make a neat job of it. Adam had never been the man to leave a thing half done.
"Go to it, Rufus!" he said, dropping his voice confidentially. "Don't be afraid to show your mettle! Don't be crowded out by that curly-topped chap! You're worth a dozen of him. Just you let her know it, that's all!"
He dug his hands into his trousers pockets with the words, and turned to go.
Rufus moved then, moved abruptly as one coming out of a dream. His eyes swooped down upon the lithe, active figure at his side. They held a smile—a fiery smile that gleamed meteor-like and passed.
"All right, Adam," he said in his deep-chested voice.
And with a sidelong nod Adam wheeled and departed. He had done his morning's work.
"Where's that Columbine?" said Mrs. Peck.
A gay trill like the call of a blackbird in the dawning answered her. Columbine, with a pink sun-bonnet over her black hair, was watering the flowers in the little conservatory that led out of the drawing-room. She had just come in from the garden, and a gorgeous red rose was pinned upon her breast. Mrs. Peck stood in the doorway and watched her.
The face above the red rose was so lovely that even her matter-of-fact soul had to pause to admire. It was a perpetual wonder to her and a perpetual fascination. The dark, unawakened eyes, the long, perfect brows, the deep, rich colouring, all combined to make such a picture as good Mrs. Peck realised to be superb.
Again the pure contralto trill came from the red lips, and then, with a sudden movement that had in it something of the grace of an alighting bird, Columbine turned, swinging her empty can.
"I've promised to take Mr. Knight to the Spear Point Caves by moonlight," she said. "He's doing a moonlight study, and he doesn't know the lie of the quicksand."
"Sakes alive!" said Mrs. Peck. "What made him ask you? There's Adam knows every inch of the shore better nor what you do."
"He didn't ask," said Columbine. "I offered. And I know the shore just as well as Adam does, Aunt Liza. Adam himself showed me the lie of the quicksand long ago. I know it like my own hand."
Mrs. Peck pursed her lips. "I doubt but what you'd better take Adam along too," she said. "I wouldn't feel easy about you. And there won't be any moonlight worth speaking of till after ten. It wouldn't do for you to be traipsing about alone even with Mr. Knight—nice young gentleman as he be—at that hour."
"Aunt Liza, I don't traipse!" Momentary indignation shone in the beautiful eyes and passed like a gleam of light. "Dear Aunt Liza," laughed Columbine, "aren't you funny?"
"Not a bit," maintained Mrs. Peck. "I'm just common-sensical, my dear. And it ain't right—it never were right in my young day—to go walking out alone with a man after bedtime."
"A man, Aunt Liza! Oh, but a man! An artist isn't a man—at least, not an ordinary man." There was a hint of earnestness in Columbine's tone, notwithstanding its lightness.
But Mrs. Peck remained firm. "It wouldn't make it right, not if he was an angel from heaven," she declared.
Columbine's gay laugh had in it that quality of youth that surmounts all obstacles. "He's much safer than an angel," she protested, "because he can't fly. Besides, the Spear Point Caves are all on this side of the Point. You could watch us all the time if you'd a mind to."
But Mrs. Peck did not laugh. "I'd rather you didn't go, my dear," she said. "So let that be the end of it, there's a good girl!"
"Oh, but I—" began Columbine, and broke off short. "Goodness, how you made me jump!" she said instead.
Rufus, his burly form completely blocking the doorway, was standing half in and half out of the garden, looking at her.
"Lawks!" said Mrs. Peck. "So you did me! Good evening, Rufus! Are you wanting Adam?"
"Not specially," said Rufus. He entered, with massive, lounging movements. "I suppose I can come in," he remarked.
"What a question!" ejaculated Mrs. Peck.
Columbine said nothing. She picked up her empty watering-can and swung it carelessly on one finger, hunting for invisible weeds in the geranium-pots the while.
Mrs. Peck was momentarily at a loss. She was not accustomed to entertaining Rufus in his father's absence.
"Have a glass of mulberry wine!" she suggested.
"Columbine, run and fetch it, dear! It's in the right-hand corner, third shelf, of the cupboard under the stairs. I'm sure you're very welcome," she added to Rufus, "but you must excuse me, for I've got to see to Mr. Knight's dinner."
"That's all right, Mother," said Rufus.
He always called her mother; it was a term of deference with him rather than affection. But Mrs. Peck liked him for it.
"Sit you down!" she said hospitably. "And mind you make yourself quite at home! Columbine will look after you. You'll be staying to supper, I hope?"
"Thanks!" said Rufus. "I don't know. Where's Adam?"
"He's chopping a bit of wood in the yard. He don't want any help. You'll see him presently. You stop and have a chat with Columbine!" said Mrs. Peck; and with a smile and nod she bustled stoutly away.
When Columbine returned with the mulberry wine and a glass on a tray the conservatory was empty. She set down her tray and paused.
There was a faintly mutinous curve about her soft lips, a gleam of dancing mischief in her eyes.
In a moment a step sounded on the path outside, and Rufus reappeared. He had been out to fill her watering-can, and he deposited it full at her feet.
"Don't put it there!" she said, with a touch of sharpness. "I don't want to tumble over it, do I? Thank you for filling it, but you needn't have troubled. I've done."
"Then it'll come in for tomorrow," said Rufus, setting the can deliberately in a corner.
Columbine turned to pour out a glass of Mrs. Peck's mulberry wine.
"Only one glass?" said Rufus.
She threw him a quizzing smile over her shoulder. "Well, you don't want two, do you?"
"No," said Rufus slowly. "But I don't drink—alone."
She gave a low, gurgling laugh. "You'll be saying you don't smoke alone next. If you want someone to keep you company, I'd better fetch Adam."
She turned round to him with the words, offering the glass on the tray. Her eyes were lowered, but the upward curl of the black lashes somehow conveyed the impression that she was peeping through them. The tilt of the red lips, with the pearly teeth just showing in a smile, was of so alluring an enchantment that the most level-headed of men could scarcely have failed to pause and admire.
Rufus paused so long that at last she lifted those glorious eyes of hers in semi-scornful interrogation.
"What's the matter?" she inquired. "Don't you want it?"
He made an odd gesture as of one at a loss to explain himself. "Won't you drink first?" he said, his voice very low.
"No, thank you," said Columbine briskly. "I don't like it."
"Then—I don't like it either," he said.
"Don't be silly!" she said. "Of course you do! I know you do! Take it, and don't be ridiculous!"
But Rufus turned away with solid resolution. "No, thanks," he said.
Columbine set down the tray again with a hint of exasperation. "You're just like a child," she said severely. "A great, overgrown boy, that's what you are!"
"All right," said Rufus, propping himself against the door-post.
"It's not all right. It's time you grew up." Columbine picked up the full glass, and, carrying it daintily, advanced upon him. "I suppose I shall have to make you take it like medicine," she remarked.
She stood against the door-post, facing him, upright, slender, exquisite as an opening flower.
"Drink, puppy, drink!" she said flippantly, and elevated the glass towards her guest's somewhat grim lips.
The sombre blue eyes came down to her with something of a flash. And in the same moment Rufus's great right hand disengaged itself from his pocket and grasped the slim wrist of the hand that held the wine.
"You drink—first!" said Rufus, and guided the glass with unmistakable resolution to the provocative red lips.
She jerked back her head to avoid it, but the doorpost against which she stood checked the backward movement. Before she could prevent it the wine was in her mouth.
She flung up her free hand and would have knocked the glass away, but Rufus could be prompt of action when he chose. He caught it from her and drained it almost in the same movement. Not a drop was spilt between them. He set down the glass on a shelf of the conservatory, and propped himself up once more with his hands in his pockets.
Columbine's face was burning red; her eyes literally blazed. Her whole body vibrated as if strung on wires. "How—dare you?" she said, and showed her white teeth with the words like an angry tigress.
He looked down at her, a faint smile in his blue eyes. "But I don't drink—alone," he said in such a tone of gentle explanation as he might have used to a child.
She stamped her foot. "I hate you!" she said. "I'll never forgive you!"
"A joke's a joke," said Rufus, still in the tone of a mild instructor.
"A joke!" Her wrath enwrapped her like a flame. "It was not a joke! It was a coarse—and hateful—trick!"
"All right," said Rufus, as one giving up a hopeless task.
"It's not all right!" flashed Columbine. "You're a bounder, an oaf, a brute! I—I'll never speak to you again, unless—you—you—apologise!"
He was still looking down with that vague hint of amusement in his eyes—the look of a man who watches the miniature fury of some tiny creature.
"I'll do anything you like," he said with slow indulgence. "I didn't know you'd turn nasty, or I wouldn't have done it."
"Nasty!" echoed Columbine. And then her wrath went suddenly into a superb gust of scorn. "Oh, you—you are beyond words!" she said. "You had better get along to the bar and drink there. You'll find your own kind there to drink with."
"I'd rather drink with you," said Rufus.
She uttered a laugh that was tremulous with anger. "You've done it for the first and last time, my man," she said.
With the words she turned like a darting, indignant bird, and left him.
Someone was entering the drawing-room from the hall with a careless, melodious whistle—a whistle that ended on a note of surprise as Columbine sped through the room. The whistler—a tall, bronzed young man in white flannels—stopped short to regard her.
His eyes were grey and wary under absolutely level brows. His hair was dark, with an inclination—sternly repressed—to waviness above the forehead. He made a decidedly pleasant picture, as even Adam could not have denied.
Columbine also checked herself at sight of him, but the red blood was throbbing at her temples. There was no hiding her agitation.
"You seem in a hurry," remarked Knight. "I hope there is nothing wrong."
His chin was modelled on firm lines, but there was a very distinct cleft in it that imparted to him the look of one who could smile at most things. His words were kindly, but they did not hold any very deep concern.
Columbine came to a stand, gripping the back of a chair to steady herself. "Oh, I—I have been—insulted!" she panted.
The straight brows went up a little; the man himself stiffened slightly. Without further words he moved across to the door into the conservatory and looked through it. He was in time to see Rufus's great, lounging figure sauntering away in the direction of the wood-yard.
Knight stood a moment or two and watched him, then quietly turned and rejoined the girl.
She was still leaning upon the chair, but she was gradually recovering her self-control. As he drew near she made a slight movement as if to resume her interrupted flight. But some other impulse intervened, and she remained where she was.
Knight came up and stood beside her. "What has he been doing to annoy you?" he asked.
She made a small, vehement gesture of disgust. "Oh, we won't talk of him. He is an oaf. I dare say he doesn't know any better, but he'll never have a chance of doing it again. I don't mix with the riff-raff."
"He's Adam's son, isn't he?" questioned Knight.
She nodded. "Yes, the great, hulking lubber! Adam's all right. I like Adam. But Rufus—well, Rufus is a bounder, and I'll never have anything more to say to him."
"I think you are quite right to hold your head up above these fisher fellows," remarked Knight, his grey eyes watching her with an appraising expression. "They are as much out of place near you as a bed of bindweed would be in the neighbourhood of a passion-flower." His glance took in her still panting bosom. "I think you are something of a passion-flower," he said, faintly smiling. "I wonder at any man daring to risk offending you."
Columbine stood up with the free movement of a disdainful princess. "Oh, he's just a lout," she said. "He doesn't know any better. It isn't as if you had done it."
"That would have been different, would it?" said Knight.
She smiled, but a sombre light still shone in her eyes. "Quite different," she said with simplicity. "You see, you're a gentleman. And—gentlemen—don't do unpleasant things like that."
He laughed a little. "You make me feel quite nervous. What a shocking thing it would be if I ever did anything to forfeit your good opinion."
"You couldn't," said Columbine.
"Couldn't!" He repeated the word with an odd inflection.
"It wouldn't be you," she explained with the utmost gravity, as one stating an irrefutable fact.
"Thank you," said Knight.
"Oh, it's not a compliment," she returned. "It's just the truth. There are some people—a few people—that one knows one can trust through and through. And you are one of them, that's all."
"Is that so?" said Knight. "You know, that's rather—a colossal thing—to say of any one."
"Then you are colossal," said Columbine, smiling more freely.
Knight turned aside, and picked up the sketch-book he had laid upon the table on entering. "Are you sure you are not rash?" he said, rather in the tone of one making a remark than asking a question.
"Fairly sure," said Columbine.
She followed him. Perhaps he had foreseen that she would. She stood by his side.
"May I see the latest?" she asked.
He opened the book and showed her a blank page. "That is the latest," he said.
She looked at him interrogatively.
"I am waiting for my—inspiration," he said.
"I hope you will find it soon," she said.
He answered her with steady conviction. "I shall find it tonight by moonlight at the Spear Point Rock."
Her face clouded a little. "I believe Adam is going to take you," she said.
"What?" said Knight. "You are never going to let me down?"
She smiled with a touch of irony. "It was the Spear Point you wanted," she reminded him.
"And you," said Knight, "to show the way."
Something in his tone arrested her. Her beautiful eyes sank suddenly to the blank page he held. "Adam can do that—as well as I can," she said.
"But you said you would," said Knight. His voice was low; he was looking full at her. He saw the rich colour rising in her cheeks. "What is it?" he said. "Won't they let you?"
She raised her head abruptly, proudly. "I please myself," she said. "No one has the ordering of me."
His grey eyes shone a little. "Then it pleases you—to let me down?" he questioned.
Her look flashed suddenly up to his. She saw his expression and laughed. "I didn't think you'd care," she said. "Adam knows the lie of the quicksand. That's all you really want."
"Oh, pardon me!" said Knight. "You are quite wrong, if you imagine that I am indifferent as to who goes with me. Inspiration won't burn in a cold place."
She dropped her lids, still looking at him. "Isn't Adam inspiring?" she asked.
"He couldn't furnish the particular sort of inspiration I am needing for my moonlight picture," said Knight.
He spoke deliberately, but his brows were slightly drawn, belying the coolness of his speech.
"What is the sort of inspiration you are wanting?" asked Columbine.
He smiled with a hint of provocation. "I'll tell you that when we get there."
Her answering smile was infinitely more provocative than his. "That will be very interesting," she said.
Knight closed his sketch-book. "I am glad to know," he said thoughtfully, "that you please yourself, Miss Columbine. In doing so, you have the happy knack of pleasing—others."
He made her a slight, courtly bow, and turned away.
He left her still standing at the table, looking after him with perplexity and gathering resolution in her eyes.
"Not stopping to supper even? Well, you must be a darned looney!"
Adam sat down astride his wood-block with the words, and looked up at his son with the aggressive expression of a Scotch terrier daring a Newfoundland.
Rufus, with his hands in his pockets, leaned against the woodshed. He made no reply of any sort to his father's brisk observation. Obviously it made not the faintest impression upon him.
After a moment or two he spoke, his pipe in the corner of his mouth. "If that chap bathes off the Spear Point rocks when the tide's at the spring he'll get into difficulties."
"Who says he does?" demanded Adam.
Rufus jerked his head. "I saw him—from my place—this afternoon. Tide was going down, or the current would have caught him. Better warn him."
"I did," responded Adam sharply. "Warned him long ago. Warned him of the quicksand, too."
Rufus grunted. "Then he's only himself to thank. Or maybe he doesn't know a spring tide from a neap."
"Oh, he's not such a fool as that," said Adam.
Rufus grunted once again, and relapsed into silence.
It was at this point that Mrs. Peck showed her portly person at the back door of The Ship.
"Why, Rufus," she said, "I thought you was in the front with Columbine."
Rufus stood up with the deference that he never omitted to pay to Adam's wife. "So I was," he said. "I came along here after to talk to Adam."
Mrs. Peck's round eyes gave him a searching look. "Did you have your mulberry wine?" she asked.
"Yes, Mother."
"You were mighty quick about it," commented Mrs. Peck.
"Yes, he's in a hurry," said Adam, with one of his birdlike glances. "Can't stop for anything, missus. Wants to get back to his supper."
"I never!" said Mrs. Peck. "You aren't in that hurry, Rufus, surely! Just as I was going to ask you to do something to oblige me, too!"
"What's that?" said Rufus.
Mrs. Peck descended into the yard with a hint of mystery. "Well, just this," she said confidentially. "That there Mr. Knight, he's a very nice young gentleman; but he's an artist, and you know, artists don't look at things like ordinary folk. He wants to get a moonlight picture of the Spear Point, and he's got our Columbine to say she'll take him there tonight. Well, now, I don't think it's right, and I told her so. But, of course, she come out as pat as anything with him being an artist and different-like from the rest. Still, I said as I'd rather she didn't, and Adam had better take him, because of the quicksand, you know. It wouldn't be hardly safe to let him go alone. He's a bit foolhardy too. But Adam's not so young as you, Rufus, and he was out before sunrise. So I thought as how maybe you'd step into the breach and take Mr. Knight along. Come, you won't refuse?"
She spoke the last words coaxingly, aware of a certain hardening of the young fisherman's rugged face.
Adam had got off his chopping-block, and was listening with pursed lips and something of the expression of a terrier at a rat-hole.
"Yes, you go, Rufus!" he said, as Mrs. Peck paused. "You show him round! I'd like him to know you."
"What for?" said Rufus.
Adam contorted one side of his face into something that was between a wink and a grin. "Do you good to go into society," he said. "That's all right, missus, he'll go. Better go and ask Mr. Knight what time he wants to start."
"Wait a bit!" commanded Rufus.
Mrs. Peck waited. She knew that her stepson was as slow of speech as his father was prompt, but she thought none the less of him for that. Rufus was solid, and she respected solid men.
"It comes to this," said Rufus, speaking ponderously. "I'll go if I'm wanted. But I'm not one for shoving myself in otherwise. Maybe the chap won't be so keen himself when he knows he can't have Columbine to go with him. Find that out first!"
Mrs. Peck looked at him with an approving smile. "Lor', Rufus! You've got some sense," she said. "But I wonder how Columbine will take it if I says anything to Mr. Knight behind her back."
Adam chuckled. "Columbine in a tantrum is one of the best sights I know," he remarked.
"Ah! She don't visit her tantrums on you," rejoined his wife. "You can afford to smile."
"And I does," said Adam.
Rufus turned away. There was no smile on his countenance. He said nothing, but there was that in his demeanour that clearly indicated that he personally was neither amused nor disconcerted by the tantrums of Columbine.
He followed Mrs. Peck indoors, and sat down in the kitchen to await developments. And Adam, whistling cheerfully, strolled to the bar.
Mrs. Peck had to dish up the visitor's dinner before she could tackle him upon the subject in hand. She trotted to and fro upon her task, too intent for further speech with Rufus, who sat in unbroken silence, gazing steadily before him with a Sphinx-like immobility that made of him an impressive figure.
The beefsteak was already in the dish, and Mrs. Peck was in the act of pouring the gravy over it when there sounded a light step on the stone of the passage and Columbine entered.
She had removed her sun-bonnet and donned a dainty little apron. The soft dark hair clustered tenderly about her temples.
"Oh, Aunt Liza," she said, "if I didn't go and forget that Sally was out tonight! I'm sorry I'm too late to help with the dinner. But I'll take it in."
She caught her breath at sight of the massive, silent figure seated against the wall, but instantly recovered her composure and passed it by with an upward tilt of the chin.
"You needn't trouble yourself to do that, my dear," rejoined Mrs. Peck, with a touch of tartness. "I'll wait on Mr. Knight myself. You can lay the supper in the parlour if you've a mind to be useful. There'll be four to lay for."
Columbine turned with something of a pounce. "No, there won't! There'll be three," she said. "If that—oaf—stays to supper, I go without!"
"Good gracious!" ejaculated Mrs. Peck.
Rufus came out of his silence. "That's all right. I'm not staying to supper," he said.
"But—lor' sakes!—what's the matter?" questioned Mrs. Peck. "Have you two been quarrelling?"
"No, we haven't!" flashed Columbine. "I wouldn't stoop. But I'm not going to sit down to supper with a man who hasn't learnt manners. I'd sooner go without—much."
Rufus remained absolutely unmoved. He made no attempt at self-justification, though Mrs. Peck was staring from one to the other in mystified interrogation.
Columbine turned swiftly and caught up a cover for the savoury dish that steamed on the table. "You'd better let me take this in before it gets cold," she said.
"No; put it on the rack!" commanded Mrs. Peck. "There's a drop of soup to go in first. And, Columbine, my dear, I don't think it's right of you to go losing your temper that way. Rufus is Adam's son, remember, and you can't refuse to sit at table with him."
"Leave her alone, Mother!" For the second time Rufus intervened. "I've offended her. My mistake. I'll know better next time."
His deep voice was wholly devoid of humour. It was, in fact, devoid of any species of emotion whatever. Yet, oddly enough, the anger died out of Columbine's face as she heard it. She turned to the tablecloth-press and began to unwind it in silence.
Mrs. Peck sniffed, and took up the soup-tureen.
As she waddled out of the kitchen Columbine withdrew the parlour tablecloth and turned round.
"If you're really sorry," she said, "I'll forgive you."
Rufus regarded her for several seconds in silence, a slow smile dawning in his eyes. "Thank you," he said finally.
"You are sorry then?" insisted Columbine.
He shook his great bull-head, the smile still in his eyes. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything," he said.
There was no perceptible familiarity in the remark, and Columbine, after brief consideration, decided to dismiss it without discussion. "Well, let it be a lesson to you, and don't you ever do such a thing again!" she said severely. "For I won't have you or any man lay hands on me—not even in fun."
"All right," said Rufus.
He thrust his hands deep into his pockets as if to remove all cause of offence, and was rewarded by a swift smile from Columbine. The storm had blown away.
"I'll lay for four after all," she said, as she whisked out of the room.
Rufus was still seated in solitary state in the kitchen when Mrs. Peck returned from the little coffee-room where she had been serving her guest.
She peered round with caution ere she came close to him and spoke.
"It's as you thought. He don't want to go with either you or Adam."
Rufus's face remained unchanged; it was slightly bovine of expression as he received the news. "We'll both get to bed in good time then," was his comment.
Mrs. Peck's smooth brow drew in momentary exasperation. She had expected something more dramatic than this.
"I'm glad you're so easily satisfied," she said. "But let me tell you—I'm not!"
She paused to see if this piece of information would take more effect than the first, but again Rufus proved a disappointment. Neither by word nor look did he express any sympathy.