Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/204

190 watch them the closer, Marden walked very quietly over the short parched grass of the roadside. And so, turning the flank of a granite boulder noiselessly, he came upon his brother, who stood with his broad back toward him, and who held in a bearlike hug the woman of that noon on the beach. In the same moment she struggled free, with a little shriek; but she was quite shameless, for with what sight there was in her wild, glazed eyes she looked only scorn at the intruder. Marden passed without change of stride or turn of head, though his heart beat curiously faster; and when their loud derision followed him, it was he who was both angry and ashamed.

That night Lee came home late, but sober enough. He sat down by the open window, and smoked; and while Marden glowered from the farthest corner, he looked out with great satisfaction across the harbor. Presently, spitting out of the window upon a tall stalk of London Pride so that it swayed with its flowers red in the lamplight, he said:—

"Lord, don't she think small o' you!—