She raised her head abruptly, proudly.  “I please myself,” she said.  “No one has the ordering of me.”

His grey eyes shone a little.  “Then it pleases you—­to let me down?” he questioned.

Her look flashed suddenly up to his.  She saw his expression and laughed.  “I didn’t think you’d care,” she said.  “Adam knows the lie of the quicksand.  That’s all you really want.”

“Oh, pardon me!” said Knight.  “You are quite wrong, if you imagine that I am indifferent as to who goes with me.  Inspiration won’t burn in a cold place.”

She dropped her lids, still looking at him.  “Isn’t Adam inspiring?” she asked.

“He couldn’t furnish the particular sort of inspiration I am needing for my moonlight picture,” said Knight.

He spoke deliberately, but his brows were slightly drawn, belying the coolness of his speech.

“What is the sort of inspiration you are wanting?” asked Columbine.

He smiled with a hint of provocation.  “I’ll tell you that when we get there.”

Her answering smile was infinitely more provocative than his.  “That will be very interesting,” she said.

Knight closed his sketch-book.  “I am glad to know,” he said thoughtfully, “that you please yourself, Miss Columbine.  In doing so, you have the happy knack of pleasing—­others.”

He made her a slight, courtly bow, and turned away.

He left her still standing at the table, looking after him with perplexity and gathering resolution in her eyes.

CHAPTER III

THE MINOTAUR

“Not stopping to supper even?  Well, you must be a darned looney!”

Adam sat down astride his wood-block with the words, and looked up at his son with the aggressive expression of a Scotch terrier daring a Newfoundland.

Rufus, with his hands in his pockets, leaned against the woodshed.  He made no reply of any sort to his father’s brisk observation.  Obviously it made not the faintest impression upon him.

After a moment or two he spoke, his pipe in the corner of his mouth.  “If that chap bathes off the Spear Point rocks when the tide’s at the spring he’ll get into difficulties.”

“Who says he does?” demanded Adam.

Rufus jerked his head.  “I saw him—­from my place—­this afternoon.  Tide was going down, or the current would have caught him.  Better warn him.”

“I did,” responded Adam sharply.  “Warned him long ago.  Warned him of the quicksand, too.”

Rufus grunted.  “Then he’s only himself to thank.  Or maybe he doesn’t know a spring tide from a neap.”

“Oh, he’s not such a fool as that,” said Adam.

Rufus grunted once again, and relapsed into silence.

It was at this point that Mrs. Peck showed her portly person at the back door of The Ship.

“Why, Rufus,” she said, “I thought you was in the front with Columbine.”