"Why, you must remember. How could any one forget anything that happened down here? So few things do happen, I should say. So you met him last summer?"
"Yes."
"Hum! that's odd."
"Shall I call Atkins? He's in his room."
"I say it is odd, because, when Mrs. Bascom and I first met you, you told us this was your first summer here."
There wasn't any answer to this; at least the assistant could think of none at the moment.
"Do you wish me to call Atkins?" he asked, sharply. "He's asleep, but I can wake him."
"Oh! he's asleep. Now I understand why you whisper even when you sw--that is, when you break a plate. You were afraid of waking him. How considerate you are."
Brown put down the dishcloth. "It isn't altogether consideration for him--or for myself," he said grimly. "I didn't care to wake him unless you took the responsibility."
"Why?"
"Because, Miss Graham, Seth Atkins took the position of lightkeeper here almost for the sole reason that no women ever came here. Mr.
Atkins is a woman-hater of the most rabid type. I'll wake him up if you wish, but I won't be responsible for the consequences."
The young lady stared at him in surprise, delighted surprise apparently, judging by the expression of her face.
"A woman-hater?" she repeated. "Is he really?"
"He is." Mr. Brown neglected to add that he also had declared himself a member of the same fraternity. Perhaps he thought it was not necessary.
"A woman-hater!" Miss Graham fairly bubbled with mischievous joy.
"Oh, jolly! now I'm CRAZY to meet him!"
The assistant moved toward the hall door. "Very good!" he observed with grim determination. "I think he'll cure your lunacy."
His hand was outstretched toward the latch, when the young lady spoke again.
"Wait a minute," she said. "Perhaps I had better not wake him now."
"Just as you say. The pleasure is--or will be--entirely mine, I assure you."
"No--o. On the whole, I think I'll wait until later. I may call again. Good morning."
She moved across the threshold. Then, standing on the mica slab which was the step to the kitchen door, she turned to say:
"You didn't swim yesterday."
"No--o. I--I was busy."
"I see."
She paused, as if expecting him to say something further on the subject. He was silent. Her manner changed.
"Good morning," she said, coldly, and walked off. The assistant watched her as she descended the path to the cove, but she did not once look back. Brown threw himself into a chair. He had never hated anyone as thoroughly as he hated himself at the moment.
"What a cheerful liar she must think I am," he reflected. "She caught me in that fool yarn about meeting her brother here last summer; and now, after deliberately promising to teach her that stroke, I don't go near her. What a miserable liar she must think I am! And I guess I am. By George, I can't be such a cad. I've got to make good somehow. I must give her ONE lesson. I must."
The tide served for bathing about three that afternoon. At ten minutes before that hour the substitute assistant keeper of Eastboro Twin-Lights tiptoed silently to the bedroom of his superior and peeped in. Seth was snoring peacefully. Brown stealthily withdrew.
At three, precisely, he emerged from the boathouse on the wharf, clad in his bathing suit.
Fifteen minutes after three, Seth Atkins, in his stocking feet and with suspicion in his eye, crept along the path to the edge of the bluff. Crouching behind a convenient sand dune he raised his head and peered over it.
Below him was the cove, its pleasant waters a smooth, deep blue, streaked and bordered with pale green. But the water itself did not interest Seth. In that water was his helper, John Brown, of nowhere in particular, John Brown, the hater of females, busily engaged in teaching a young woman to swim.
Atkins watched this animated picture for some minutes. Then, carefully crawling back up to the path until he was well out of possible sight from the cove, he rose to his feet, raised both hands, and shook their clenched fists above his head.
"The liar!" grated Mr. Atkins, between his teeth. "The traitor!
The young blackguard! After tellin' me that he . . . And after my doin' everything for him that . . . Oh, by Judas, wait! only wait till he comes back! I'LL l'arn him! I'LL show him! Oh, by jiminy crimps!"
He strode toward the doorway of the kitchen. There he stopped short. A woman was seated in the kitchen rocker; a stout woman, with her back toward him. The room, in contrast to the bright sunshine without, was shadowy, and Seth, for an instant, could see her but indistinctly. However, he knew who she must be--the housekeeper at the bungalow--"Basket" or "Biscuit" his helper had said was her name, as near as he could remember it. The lightkeeper ground his teeth. Another female! Well, he would teach this one a few things!
He stepped across the threshold.
"Ma'am," he began, sharply, "perhaps you'll tell me what you--"
He stopped. The stout woman had, at the sound of his step, risen from the chair, and turned to face him. And now she was staring at him, her face almost as white as the stone-china cups and saucers on the table.
"Why . . . why . . . SETH!" she gasped.
The lightkeeper staggered back until his shoulders struck the doorpost.
"Good Lord!" he cried; "good . . . LORD! Why--why--EMELINE!"
For over a minute the pair stared at each other, white and speechless. Then Mrs. Bascom hurried to the door, darted out, and fled along the path around the cove to the bungalow. Atkins did not follow her; he did not even look in the direction she had taken.
Instead, he collapsed in the rocking-chair and put both hands to his head.