At that, a nervous laugh welled from Sonia Turgeinov’s throat; she had to give way.  Possibly the absurd thought seized her that all the tragedies and comedies might be simmered down to one thing.  Were there biscuits in the basket?  But Betty Dalrymple did not laugh; her eyes were like stars on a wintry night; her face was white as paper.  It was turned now from the steersman—­ahead.  She saw the blur before them become a definite line of green; later she made out details, the large heads of small trees.  The former looked like big overflowing cabbages; the trunks, beneath, sprawled this way and that, as the vagaries of the wind had directed their growth.  In front of them and the vernal strip, a white line slowly resolved itself into moving foam.  She—­they all could hear it now, faintly—­they were very near; no thunderous anthem it pealed forth; its voice seethed in soft cadences.

Mr. Heatherbloom, with sheet taut, ran his craft toward the sands but the boat grounded some little distance from the shore.  It was useless to attempt to go farther so he let his sail out, got up and stepped overboard.  The water was rather more than knee deep; he tugged at the boat and attempted to draw her up farther without much success.  She was too heavy, and desisting from his efforts, he approached Miss Dalrymple.  The young girl shrank back slightly, but seeming not to notice that first instinctive movement, he reached over and lifted her out.  It was done in a businesslike manner and with no more outward concern than a Kikuji porter might have displayed in meeting the exigencies of a like situation.  The bubbles seethed around Mr. Heatherbloom’s legs; unmindful of them or the shifting sands beneath foot, he strode straight as might be for the shore.  His burden was not a heavy one but it seemed very still and unyielding.  He released her at the earliest possible opportunity and in the same matter-of-fact way (still that of a human ferry on the banks of the turbulent Chania) he returned for his other passenger.  Around Sonia Turgeinov’s rich lips a mocking smile seemed to play; she arose at once.

“How charming!  How very gallant!” she murmured.  “First, you nearly strangle one, and then—­”

Her soft arm stole about his neck, and her warm breath swept his cheek as, stony-faced, he trudged along.  This time his burden was heavier, although there were men who would not have minded that under the circumstances.  The dark eyes, full of sparkles and enigmas, turned upon his frosty ones.  But she did not see very far into that so-called medium of the soul; she received only an impression one gets in looking at a wall.