"Take it off, please."
"You needn't trouble," he expostulated, still gruff.
"I insist. Please let me do a little something to make up for the
Polly's naughtiness."
"It will be all right until I can get ashore--and perhaps I'll never
have need to wear the coat again, anyway."
"Won't you allow me to be doing something that will take my mind off my
troubles, sir?" Then she snapped her finger into her palm and there was
a spirit of matronly command in her voice, in spite of her youth. "I
insist, I say! Take off your coat."
He obeyed, a little grin crinkling at the corners of his mouth--a
flicker of light in his general gloom. After he had placed the coat in
her hands he sat down on the transom and watched her busy fingers.
She worked deftly. She closed in the rents and then darned the raveled
places with bits of the thread pulled from the coat itself.
"You are making it look almost as good as new."
"A country girl must know how to patch and darn. The folks in the
country haven't as many things to throw away as the city folks have."
"But that--what you are doing--that's real art."
"My aunt does dressmaking and I have helped her. And lately I have
been working in a millinery-shop. Any girl ought to know how to use her
needle."
He remembered what Mr. Speed had said about the reason for her presence
on the Polly. He cast a disparaging glance around the bare cabin and
decided in his mind that Mr. Speed had reported truthfully and with full
knowledge of the facts. Surely no girl would choose that sort of thing
for a summer vacation.
She bent her head lower over her work and he was conscious of warmer
sympathy for her; their troubled affairs of the heart were in similar
plight. He felt an impulse to say something to console her and knew that
he would welcome understanding and consolation from her; promptly he was
afraid of his own tongue, and set curb upon all speech.
"A man never knows how far he may go in making fool talk when he gets
started," he reflected. "Feeling the way I do to-night, I'd better keep
the conversation kedge well hooked."
Now that her hands were busy, she did not find the silence embarrassing.
Mayo returned to his ugly meditations.
After a time he was obliged to shift himself on the transom. The
schooner was heeling in a manner which showed the thrust of wind. He
glanced up and saw that the rain was smearing broad splashes on the
dingy glass of the windows. The companion hatch was open, and when he
cocked his ear, with mariner's interest in weather, he heard the wind
gasping in the open space with a queer "guffle" in its tone.