fore dinner.

"How is this?" she exclaimed. "Wasn't the fishing good?"

"I have had a disagreeable experience," he said, "and I will tell you
about it. I was fishing in a little cove some distance down the lake and
having good sport, when I heard a thumping, and looking around I saw
Raybold in a boat rowing towards me. I suppose he thought he was rowing,
but he was really floating with the current; but as he neared me he
suddenly pulled his boat towards me with such recklessness that I was
afraid he would run into me. I considered his rowing into the cove to be a
piece of bad manners, for of course it would spoil my fishing, but I had
no idea he actually intended to lay alongside of me. This he did, however,
and so awkwardly that his boat struck mine with such force that it half
tipped it over. Then he lay hold of my gunwale, and said he had something
to say to me.

"I was as angry as if a man in the street had knocked my hat down over my
eyes and said that he did so in order to call my attention to a
subscription paper. But this indignation was nothing to what I felt when
the fellow began to speak. I cannot repeat his words, but he stated his
object at once, and said that as this was a good opportunity to speak to
me alone, he wished to ask me to remove what he called the utterly useless
embargo which I had placed upon him in regard to Margery. He said it was
useless because he could not be expected to give up his hopes and his
plans simply because I objected to them; and he went on to say that if I
understood him fully, and if Margery understood him, he did not believe
that either of us would object. And then he actually asked me to use my
influence with her to make her listen to him. From what he said, I am sure
he has been speaking to her. I did not let him finish, but turned and
blazed at him in words as strong as would come to me. I ordered him never
to speak to me again or show himself in my camp, and told him that if he
did either of these things he would do them at his peril; and then, for
fear he might say something which would make me lose control of myself, I
jerked up my anchor and rowed away from him. I didn't feel like fishing
any more, and so I came back."

"His behavior is shameful," said Mrs. Archibald. "And what is more, it is
ridiculous, for Margery would not look at him. What sort of a man does he
think you are, to suppose that you would give your permission to any one,
no matter who he might be,