CHAPTER XIII CROSS PURPOSES An odor of coffee was wafted through the cracks around the cabin door. In a little while Lorna called him. "I’ve made a hot drink, Ralph," she said. "Just as soon as I get my clothing dry you must come down and change." "Thanks, Lorna," Endicott said, accepting the cup of coffee. "But I don’t need to. I didn’t take a header into the briny as you did. You’d better put on my oilskins. Your dress won’t be fit to wear." He had removed his shoes and socks and rolled up the legs of his trousers. In this free-and-easy costume he could the better get about the wet boat. He swabbed out the cockpit and set the waterproof covered cushions on their edges to dry. He wiped off the machinery with a handful of waste, and tried the spark. The mechanism of the _Fenique_ seemed to have suffered but little from the battering of the heavy seas. The clouds scattered quickly. The sun appeared again, low hung in the west and of a golden-red—prophesying that old weather-wise doggerel: "Red at night Sailors’ delight." The slate-colored seas outside the harbor still ran high, but they heaved now without breaking into foam. Their rumbling thunder against the breakwater was more subdued; no longer did the fierce insistence of the black squall mark the sound of the surf. The brief tempest had winged its way out to sea. "Shall we start soon, Ralph?" asked Lorna, appearing from the cubby in the mannish apparel he had suggested. "If you are not afraid that it is still too rough." "Nonsense! I’m not afraid with _you_," she said with a frankness that secretly pleased him. She seemed quite unconscious that her words marked a comparison of Conway Degger and Ralph. She added: "The _Fenique_ is a good boat." "We’ll try it, then," Ralph said cheerfully and without looking directly at her. But she was worth looking at! With her glossy curls banded with one of Ralph’s old neckties that she had found below, her dark and glowing face was more piquant than usual. The oilskins swathing her figure made it seem veritably boyish. She, too, was barefooted, and her tiny, high-arched feet were as white as milk. Ralph looked at them shyly; but Lorna seemed quite unconscious of his scrutiny. They did not speak of Conway Degger. Yet Ralph thought—it was a poignant flash in his mind—that the girl had been just as unconsciously frank with Degger as she was with him. Was she not too old now to play about with men, like the little tomboy she was wont to be? Never until Degger had come into their life had this thought ruffled Ralph’s tranquillity. Surely Lorna Nicholet was a woman grown. She should leave off childish things. Yet she was such a bewitching morsel of a girl! Ralph moved nervously. He cast another glance at those wondrously white, blue-veined insteps.