"If only you don't mind," said Colonel Meredith. "It's all our fault. You probably didn't want to come. You just came to be friendly and kind, and now you are hungry and wet to the skin—"

"But," interrupted Bob Jonstone, "if only you will forget all that and think what pleasure we are having."

"I can't hear what you say," called Maud.

"I beg your pardon," shouted Mr. Jonstone. "I didn't quite catch that. What did Miss Darling say, Mel?"

"She said she wanted to talk to me and for you to shut up."

Mr. Jonstone made a playful but powerful swing at his cousin, and the guide boat, as if suddenly tired of her passengers, calmly upset and spilled them out.

A moment later the true gallantry of Mr. Bob Jonstone showed forth in glorious colors. Having risen to the surface and made good his hold upon the overturned boat, he proposed very humbly, as amends for causing the accident, to let go and drown.

"If you do," said Maud, excitement overcoming her sense of the ridiculous, "I'll never speak to you again."

Colonel Meredith opened his mouth to laugh and closed it a little hastily on about a pint of water.

Chapter XXIII

*

The water was so rough, the weather so thick, and their point of view so very low down in the world that Maud and the Carolinians could neither see the shore from which they had departed nor that toward which they were slowly drifting. The surface water was warm, however, owing to a week of sunshine, and it was not necessary to drop one's legs into the icy stratum beneath.

It is curious that what the three complained of the most was the incessant, leaden rain. Their faces were colder than their bodies. They admitted that they had never been so wet in all their lives. Maud and Colonel Meredith, not content with the slow drifting, kicked vigorously; but Bob Jonstone had all he could do to cling to the guide boat and keep his head above water. His legs had a way of suddenly rising toward the surface and wrapping themselves half around the submerged boat. An effort was made to right the boat and bale her out. But Maud's water-soaked skirt and a sudden case of rattles on the part of Jonstone prevented the success of the manoeuvre.

Half an hour passed.

"Personally," said Jonstone, "I've had about enough of this."

His clinging hands looked white and thin; the knuckles were beginning to turn blue. He had a drawn expression about the mouth, but his eyes were bright and resolute.

"I've always understood," said Colonel Meredith, "that girls suffer less than men from total submersion in cold water. I sincerely hope, Miss Darling, that this is so."

"Oh, I'm not suffering," said she; "not yet. My father used to let us go in sometimes when there was a skin of ice along shore. So please don't worry about me."

Mr. Jonstone's teeth began to chatter very steadily and loudly. And just then Maud raised herself a little, craned her neck, and had a glimpse of the shore—a long, half-submerged point, almost but not quite obliterated by the fog and the splashing rain.