From the first, with his easy _savoir-faire_, he had waived ceremony, till at length there was no ceremony left between them.

He treated her like a lady.
What more could the most exacting demand?
And yet Adam continued to call him "the curly-topped chap," and turned him over to his son Rufus when he requested permission to go out in his boat.
And Rufus--Rufus turned with a gesture of disgust after the utterance of his half-veiled threat, and spat with savage emphasis upon the sand.
Adam uttered a chuckle that was not wholly unsympathetic, and began deftly to coil the now disentangled rope.
"Do you know what I'd do--if I was in your place ?" he said.
Rufus made a sound that was strictly noncommittal.
Adam's quick eyes flung him a birdlike glance.

"Why don't you come along to The Ship and smoke a pipe with your old father of an evening ?" he said.

"Once a week's not enough, not, that is, if you--" He broke off suddenly, caught by a whistle that could not be resisted.
Rufus was regarding the horizon with those brooding eyes of vivid blue.
Abruptly Adam ceased to whistle.

"When I was a young chap," he said, "I didn't keep my courting for Sundays only.