"Corrie Rose, you are given to the folly of hero-worship; and heroes are few," he accused sternly.
"I don't know about that, Mr. Gerard."
"I do. But, Corrie——"
"Present."
Gerard stood up, reaching for his raincoat.
"Beware of heroine-worship, it is the folly. When you find the real woman, get on your knees, where you belong, before a grace of God, but don't build shrines to an imitation."
Astonished, Corrie paused, upright beside the ciderpress, then smiled with a blending of pride and serious exaltation.
"No danger of that! I—that can never happen to me," he assured quietly. "I am safe-guarded from imitations, win or lose. I believe, if I am given to hero-worship, that I'm pretty good at picking the right subjects for it. Had enough cider?"
"Too much, probably. If I am ill to-morrow, I shall tell Rupert that you poisoned me. Are you going around to pay the lord proprietors of the place for what we have consumed?"
"Who, me? If I did, Mrs. Goodwin might box my ears for the impertinence; she has boxed them before. I grew up around here, remember. The first acquaintance I made with this house was when I shied an apple at the family tabby as it sat sunning itself on the well-curb, and bowled it in. Naturally, I hadn't meant to hit it; the beast stepped forward just as I fired. I nearly fell in, myself, trying to get it out, but the well was deep and I couldn't raise a meow or a whisker. It was a fine November Sunday, I remember, and while I was busy the family drove into the yard, home from church. I bolted. No one saw me go, but by and by I began to remember all the yarns I ever had heard about people getting typhoid fever from polluted well-water, and to imagine that entire household dying on my hands. Remorse with a capital R! I felt like Cesare Borgia and Madame de Brinvilliers and the Veiled Mokanna all rolled into one. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I sneaked into Flavia's room at two o'clock in the morning, for counsel."
"She gave it?"
"She gave it. You can always count on Flavia. I can see her now, sitting up in bed with her hair braided in two big yellow plaits and her troubled kiddie countenance turned to me.
"'You will have to tell either papa or those people,' she decided, wise as a toy owl. 'And if you tell them, they will surely tell papa, so perhaps you would rather tell him yourself. But I am sorry, dear darling.'
"So I 'fessed up, after breakfast."
"What happened?" Gerard questioned.
"We drove over to the farm together, and father went in for a private interview with old man Goodwin. After which he, father, escorted me around to the well and informed me that I was to drink a cup of that water. Phew, I would rather have drunk hemlock! I wasn't much given to begging off when I got into trouble, but I tried that time, all right.
"'It's what you've left these folks to drink,' said he, standing with his hands in his pockets, looking at me. 'It would have been a lot more pleasant for you to swallow if you had owned up two days ago; just keep that as a reminder never to put off a thing you ought to do. Take your medicine, Corwin B.'
"I took it. But it almost killed me." He shook his blond head disgustedly. "I told him I would probably die of typhoid, or something worse. He said we would chance it."
"Still, it was a chance, Corrie."
Corrie calmly fastened the last button of his raincoat.
"No, I guess not. You see, old Goodwin had told father that they pulled pussy out of the well ten minutes after I ran away, the first day. She was clinging to the bucket, pretty wet, but healthy and merry. Father told me the truth, before dinner-time; I didn't seem to care for luncheon, that day. Have you got a pencil? I've lost my fountain-pen again; that's the third I've bought this month."
Gerard produced the pencil.
"It was a rough joke on you, though," he commented. "Didn't you resent it?"
Corrie lifted his bright clear glance from his task of tearing a blank leaf from his notebook.
"Hadn't I earned it?" he asked. "Keep the lines straight, Gerard; my father never punished me in anger, nor unless I could first admit I deserved it and we could shake hands on it afterward. Of course, that sort of thing ended five years ago—there never was much of it—but there couldn't be closer friends than we have been, right through. We have kept each other's respect, we couldn't get along without it; and we expect a good deal of each other, too. I just don't want you to misunderstand."
He scribbled his signature across the bit of paper, and secured the legend to the ciderpress.
"There; now the Goodwins will know who has been here. Ready?"
"Ready," Gerard assented.
The rain had ceased; the vigorous broom of the north wind was sweeping the broken storm-clouds across a gray sky. The drive to the yacht club was accomplished pleasantly and quickly.
"I told Rupert to meet us here at noon," Corrie observed, when they stopped at the pier. "And I had lunch for three sent over, this morning. What a deserted old hole the club is in October! Hello, what——"
From beneath the tarpaulin cover of a long, polished motor boat moored in the wall-locked artificial harbor, a frowsy head had projected, to be instantly withdrawn into shelter at sight of the two young men. The genus of that head was unmistakable, the action significant. Both arrivals halted involuntarily.
"Club steward?" inquired Gerard, with irony.
"Tramp!" flared his companion, recovering breath after the first shock of amazement at the audacity of the intruder. "A dirty, lazy hobo in my boat! Lying on my cushions, mauling my things, running my engine for all I know. Oh!"
"Hold on," Gerard advised. "Better investigate."
But Corrie was already at the edge of the pier.
"Come out of there!" he shouted imperiously. "Come out, I say, or I'll come aboard and throw you out. What do you mean by it? Come out, I tell you."
The head slowly emerged, a red head in need of combing; its owner rested his arms on the gleaming mahogany deck and turned a sullen, unshaven face on his challenger.
"Stand me a quarter, an' I'll beat it," he invited raucously.
"A quarter! You'll beat it without a cent and do it quick, or go to jail. That is my boat, do you hear? Come out. What are you doing there? Stealing?"
"Sleepin', if you want to know."
"I've got a right to know. Are you going to take your filthy self off my cushions, or am I going to throw you off?"
"You?"
"Yes, me. Who do you think?"
The man measured his young antagonist with unhurried scrutiny, yawned, and ostentatiously settled himself in a position of greater comfort.
"You can't do it," he sneered. "Send a man."
The Dear Me was not anchored, but moored to the pier by a pulley and tackle. Before the diverted Gerard guessed his purpose, Corrie had hauled in the boat's bow by the running line attached and swung himself raging into the craft below. There was a choked oath, a sound of rending canvas, then the clatter and thud of combat in close quarters.
It was over before Gerard could do more than haul the reeling, water-drenched boat again within reach. A great splash, a cry changing to a smothered gurgle, announced a threat fulfilled.
"I don't want any help," panted Corrie, standing erect and dishevelled, fiery blue eyes on his floundering enemy. "He's had enough, I fancy. Here, the water is only five feet deep, you chump! Not that way! Throw me an oar, Gerard—he'd drown himself in a saucer. Here, catch hold, you. What's the matter with you?"
"You pitched him into pretty cold