"I'm Mrs. Fyfe."
"Ah!" said he. An expression of veiled surprise flashed across his face.
"Another potential romance strangled at birth. You know, I hoped you
were some local maiden before whom I could pose as a heroic rescuer.
Such is life. Odd, too. Linda Abbey--I'm the Monohan tail to the Abbey
business kite, you see--impressed me as pilot for a spin this afternoon
and backed out at the last moment. I think she smelled this blow. So I
went out for a ride by myself. I was glowering at that new house through
a glass when I spied you out in the thick of it."
He had the clutch in now, and the launch was cleaving the seas, even at
half speed throwing out wide wings of spray. Some of this the wind
brought across the cockpit. "Come up into this seat," Monohan commanded.
"I don't suppose you can get any wetter, but if you put your feet
through this bulkhead door, the heat from the engine will warm you. By
Jove, you're fairly shivering."
"It's lucky for me you happened along," Stella remarked, when she was
ensconced behind the bulkhead. "I was getting so cold. I don't know how
much longer I could have stood it."
"Thank the good glasses that picked you out. You were only a speck on
the water, you know, when I sighted you first."
He kept silent after that. All his faculties were centered on the seas
ahead which rolled up before the sharp cutwater of the launch. He was
making time and still trying to avoid boarding seas. When a big one
lifted ahead, he slowed down.
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