they were young and it was Sunday sunrise and there was a sailing wind, they pointed into the lake, sending a rail under as they met the waves, whereat they laughed and dipped it deeper.
Off watch, at the start of this cruise, Jay lay on the deck in the sun and wind, daydreaming. The wind and the wash of the water, the furrow following free, were like Lida's image of the south sea venture for him and her—the venture which Lida herself had come to doubt. He did not dream of Lida here in place of his shipmates of the sloop's crew; his daydream turned him upon his side and he searched along the shore for the stretch of the city in which Ellen Powell lived. Asleep she was, he thought; but he liked to locate her.
He glanced astern and at the skipper at the helm and he thought of relating the doings of this day to Ellen; for the skipper was Ken Howarth, the Arletta was Ken's and so there was entwined with the sport of this day's cruise, an element of business. Jay smiled at comments which came into his head upon this element and his own ⟨situation;⟩ he thought of repeating them to the only person who could appreciate them. She was asleep ashore, he thought.
Ellen was not asleep; for he had mentioned to her, yesterday, his invitation to sail on the Arletta and he had said they would be off early. So, without having set an alarm, Ellen had awakened at sunrise and from her window she had been watching the lake, not for the smoke and the long, gray hull of the Blenmora far out, but for
