"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 assisted 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 muffled 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.