"I guess I haven't been much good--for a while--have I?"
Agatha considered before replying. "You were quite exhausted, I think; and we feared you might be ill."
"And Handy Andy got my job?" She laughed outright at this, as much for the feeling of reassurance it gave her as for the jest itself.
"Handy Andy certainly _had_ a job, with us two on his hands!" she laughed.
"I bet he did!" cried James, with more vigor than he had shown before. "He's a great man; I'm for him! When's he coming back?"
"Early in the morning, I hope," said Agatha, swallowing her misgivings.
"That's good," said James. "I think I'll be about and good for something myself by that time."
There was another long pause, so long that Agatha thought James must have gone to sleep again. He thought likewise of her, it appeared; for when he next spoke it was in a careful whisper:
"Yes, indeed; quite. Do you want anything?"
"Yes, a number of things. First, are you quite recovered from the trouble--that night's awful trouble?" He seemed to be wholly lost as to time. "Did you come off without any serious injury? Do you look like yourself, strong and rosy-cheeked again?"
Agatha replied heartily to this, and her answer appeared to satisfy James for the moment. "Though," she added, "here in the dark, who can tell whether I have rosy cheeks or not?"
"True!" sighed James, but his sigh was not an unhappy one. Presently he began once more: "I want to know, too, if you weren't surprised that I knew your name?"
"Well, yes, a little, when I had time to think about it. How _did_ you know it?"
James laughed. "I meant to keep it a secret, always; but I guess I'll tell, after all--just you. I got it from the program, that Sunday, you know."
"Ah, yes, I understand." She didn't quite understand, at first; for there had been other Sundays and other songs. But she could not weary him now with questions.
As they lay there the slow, monotonous susurrus of the sea made a deep accompaniment to their words. It was near, and yet immeasurably far, filling the universe with its soft but insistent sound and echoes of sound. At the back of her mind, Agatha heard it always, low, threatening, and strong; but on the surface of her thoughts, she was trying to decide what she ought to do. She was thinking whether she might question her companion a little concerning himself, when he answered her, in part, of his own accord.