When they had passed the old House of Refuge Lucy drew rein and stopped the drag where the widening circle of the incoming tide could bathe the horses’ feet.  She was still uncertain as to how she would lead up to the subject-matter without betraying her own jealousy or, more important still, without losing her temper.  This she rarely displayed, no matter how goading the provocation.  Nobody had any use for an ill-tempered woman, not in her atmosphere; and no fly that she had ever known had been caught by vinegar when seeking honey.  There might be vinegar-pots to be found in her larder, but they were kept behind closed doors and sampled only when she was alone.  As she sat looking out to sea, Max’s brain still at work on the problem of her unusual mood, a schooner shifted her mainsail in the light breeze and set her course for the inlet.

“That’s the regular weekly packet,” Max ventured.  “She’s making for Farguson’s ship-yard.  She runs between Amboy and Barnegat—­Captain Ambrose Farguson sails her.”  At times like these any topic was good enough to begin on.

“How do you know?” Lucy asked, looking at the incoming schooner from under her half-closed lids.  The voice came like the thin piping of a flute preceding the orchestral crash, merely sounded so as to let everybody know it was present.

“One of my carriages was shipped by her.  I paid Captain Farguson the freight just before I went away.”

“What’s her name?”—­slight tremolo—­only a note or two.

“The Polly Walters,” droned Max, talking at random, mind neither on the sloop nor her captain.

“Named after his wife?” The flute-like notes came more crisply.

“Yes, so he told me.”  Max had now ceased to give any attention to his answers.  He had about made up his mind that something serious was the matter and that he would ask her and find out.

“Ought to be called the Max Feilding, from the way she tacks about.  She’s changed her course three times since I’ve been watching her.”

Max shot a glance athwart his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the pretty lips thinned and straightened and the half-closed eyes and wrinkled forehead.  He was evidently the disturbing cause, but in what way he could not for the life of him see.  That she was angry to the tips of her fingers was beyond question; the first time he had seen her thus in all their acquaintance.

“Yes-that would fit her exactly,” he answered with a smile and with a certain soothing tone in his voice.  “Every tack her captain makes brings him the nearer to the woman he loves.”

“Rather poetic, Max, but slightly farcical.  Every tack you make lands you in a different port—­ with a woman waiting in every one of them.”  The first notes of the overture had now been struck.

“No one was waiting in Philadelphia for me except Sue, and I only met her by accident,” he said good-naturedly, and in a tone that showed he would not quarrel, no matter what the provocation; “she came in to see her doctor.  Didn’t stay an hour.”