“Too energetic for me.  I want something more restful.”

His languid tone annoyed Phebe, and she dropped her indifferent manner.

“Mr. Barrett, did it ever occur to you that you were lazy?”

He flushed.

“No; it hadn’t occurred to me in that light before.  Am I?”

“Very.”

He sat up.

“I am sorry.  Miss McAlister, had it ever occurred to you that you are outspoken?”

“I don’t care if I am.”

For an instant, he looked at her angrily.  It was a new experience to him to have any one take that tone in addressing him.  Then he rose to his feet.

“I am afraid I have been intruding upon your time, Miss McAlister,” he said stiffly.

“You needn’t get mad,” Phebe observed.  “People don’t all think alike, you know; and I only told you my opinion.”

He bowed in silence; then he walked away his hands in his pockets and his cap tilted backwards aggressively.  Half-way to the row of awnings, he spoke.

“Little vixen!” he said forcibly.  Then he dropped down on the sand at Hope’s feet, with his back turned flatly towards the figure under the blue umbrella.

“Then you are coming to supper with us, to-morrow night,” Theodora said, as at length he rose to his feet.  “I suppose music is a forbidden subject, Mr. Barrett; you probably get very tired of the things people say to you.  Still, I have a little cousin staying with me, who is anxious to meet you, and—­”

Her sentence was never finished, and Cicely’s anxiety was left hanging in mid air, for there came a cry from Phebe,—­

“Oh, Hope!  Mac!  Help!”

Mr. Barrett whirled about to face the surf just in time to see Mac swept off his feet by an incoming wave, drawn back under the next one and hidden from sight beneath the awful weight of water.  With a quick exclamation, he ran forward into the edge of the water.  Then he drew back.

“Save him,” Phebe commanded.  “Go in!  I can’t do anything in this horrid gown.”  As she spoke, she tugged fiercely at her fluffy skirt which, wet to her knees, clung closely about her feet.  “Go in and get him!” she commanded again.

Then for the hour, Gifford Barrett wished that the sand would close over him.

“I can’t,” he said through his shut teeth.  “It would be of no use.”

“Coward!” she said fiercely.  “And you would let the boy drown!”

The words had been low and hurried, and no one was near to hear them, or to check Phebe.  For a moment, Mr. Barrett turned white.  He started to reply; then he controlled himself and was silent.  This was not the time to seek to justify himself.  The little scene was ended before Billy Farrington, stripped to his waist, rushed past them and plunged into the pounding surf.