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He sat erect, thinking that if there was anything repulsive to him in a woman, it was physical indolence, and a strength of any sort greater than his own. Old Sutphen presently asked him if he too wouldn't give them a song. Now, Neckart never sang except when alone, as his voice was a very remarkable baritone, and he had no mind to make a reputation on that sort of capital.
Bruce Neckart represented to her Strength itself, and he submitted to these rules cheerfully. He was happy to think of her as the wife of a good, presentable man! When she had thought of him as going alone with his terrible burden away from her into the wilderness, true to her until the last breath of reason was gone, there had been a thrill of delight in the intolerable pain.
She rose at last, and went across the sands to her father. Neckart was soon conscious of an uneasy change in everything about him. The atmosphere of sunlit rest was broken. The clouds only meant rain, the sand was sand, and the sea but a wet swash of water: he began to look at his watch and think of the trains. The influence that had quieted him so unaccountably had been in the girl, then?
He took up his hat: "It is time for you to catch the train, captain. Will you take me with you?" Captain Swendon looked at him hastily: "The very best thing you can do, Bruce! Just what I should advise. Jane, go on before with Bruno. Mr. Neckart and I will follow." Mr. Neckart was annoyed. He had forgotten that the girl was to go, and had thought of the captain as his only companion.
I know two human beings," said Neckart gravely, "who, when they first met, felt a strong mutual antipathy, and now they " She turned, looking keenly at him. "They are good friends, Miss Swendon," looking into her eyes. "Yes. There could not be any better," putting out her hand frankly.
Lantrim nodded ponderously. One story or slow monologue followed another of shipwrecks, frequent on that murderous coast, of rescues by wreckers, of "vyages" down the coast or to India, Africa, with plenty of sailors' superstition in it all. Neckart lay on his back smoking, his hands under his head. It seemed as if he were the boy he was on that day's fishing long ago.
"Bruno's, rather." Neckart laughed. After the manner of men, he had judged the man who was crossing his life with calm common sense and justice, but he was quite satisfied that the woman with neither should condemn him. The late clear twilight lingered with a haze of red in the sky, although the sun had been down for an hour or more. Jane stood irresolutely in the window.
Outside, the sunshine flashed sometimes, pale and watery, and the blackberries in the hedge were getting rid of their white blossoms and reddening their green knobs, and a wild tiger-lily here and there blazed its answer to the summer; but the old hemlocks, just as Neckart knew them when a boy, kept silence and nodded thoughtfully together, meditating over their ancient secret.
"Father," she said, "you are spending the whole day with Mr. Neckart. You have not told Sutphen the town news. I am afraid the old man will be hurt." "That's a fact: I'll go over directly. You will like to be alone a while, Neckart, at any rate. Come, Jane." Neckart rose: "You are not going over to those rough fellows, Miss Swendon? There are no women there." Jane laughed.
Neckart smiled: he could only guess the result of his experiment, but he did guess it. "Miss Swendon did not ask me to sing again," he said to the captain. "Well, no. The song hurt her somehow. Jane had always an unaccountable dislike to music," apologetically. "I'm exceedingly fond of it myself: it's a passion with me. I enjoy anything from an organ to a jewsharp. But she does not.
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