Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/364

 him. "That young man will get a scratching." He was quite sure that he knew more about women than Kit did; he had every right to think so.

Molly stepped down into the green punt, for it was more roomy than the dinghy, and the challenge to Kit was as obvious as she could make it. He bent down and unfastened the painter, and held the punt against the stage while Wolffe was getting on board, and Molly was slipping the punt pole from its straps. She stood up with the pole trailing, her eyes on Kit's.

But he, without a word, and with a tranquil and fateful face, thrust the punt away from the stage, and stood up and nodded at Oscar Wolffe. There was complete silence. The situation was accepted and laid aside for its ultimate solution. Molly began to pole the punt across the river, and Mr. Wolffe's formless and pallid face receded like a whimsical mask in which the eyes became two little expressionless dots.

Kit, with his hands in his pockets, watched the swirl die out of the sleek brown water. The punt swung sideways into the opposite bank, there was a mooring post by the steps, and Kit heard Molly's level voice, and saw Wolffe's response to it. He climbed out with the painter and fastened the punt to the post. The green figure joined him on the towing path.

Wolffe waved an ironic hand, but Molly Pentreath's head remained in profile. They moved away together towards the end of the lane.

Kit felt for his pipe and pouch, and filling his pipe, with conclusive deliberation, lit it, threw the match into the river, and considered the significance of the manœuvre. Obviously, she was walking with Wolffe to Marley station, hatless and in that green and cerise knitted frock. Would she come back? Her temperament was capable of taking her up to town just as she was, in mood and dress. If she did not come back there was the dinghy, but he realized that if he were left to ferry himself across in the dinghy it would be a passage of humiliation, self-tempted. Wolffe would go to