"Would you?" he said, eying her rather strangely. "Perhaps some day——"
He stopped, and knocked the ash from his cigarette.
"Were you going to say that perhaps some day I should own one like her? What nonsense! It is like the things one reads in books, when the benevolent and wise old gentleman tells the boy that perhaps, if he works hard, and is honest and persevering, he may own a carriage and a pair like that which happens to be passing at the moment."
Vernon laughed.
"Life is full of possibilities," he said, with his eyes fixed on the yacht, which, after sailing broadside to them for some time, suddenly put down the helm and struck out for sea.
"I thought they might be making for Shorne Mills," said Nell, rather regretfully. "Yachts put in there sometimes, and I should have liked to have seen this one."
"Would you?" he said, as curiously as he had spoken before.
"It doesn't matter whether I would or wouldn't; she's gone out into the channel now," said Nell.
He stifled a sigh which sounded like a sigh of relief, and steered the Annie Laurie for home.