"I see," she said. "Then I am not to tell father. How will he know how to address the wire about the yacht?"
"Send it to Sparling," he said. "I am sorry to have stopped you. Good-by."
She inclined her head and murmured "Good-by" for the second time, and went on again; but a few steps lower she stopped and pondered his strange request.
"Curious," she murmured. "I wonder whether there is any other reason? One knows what men are; and poor Drake is no better than the rest. Ah, well, it does not matter to me—now. Thank goodness it is over! Though one can always count upon Drake; he is too thorough a gentleman to make a scene or bully a woman. Heaven knows I am sorry to break with him, and I wish that old stupid hadn't made such a fool of himself; for Drake and I would have got on very well. But as things are——As father says, it's impossible. I wonder whether they are coming back; I am simply dying for tea."
Before she got down to the jetty, her fellow voyagers caught her up. They were in the best of spirits, and hilarious over the fact that Sir Archie had slipped on one of the grassy slopes and stained his white flannel suit with green; and Lady Lucille joined in the merriment.
"I'm sorry I didn't come, after all," she said. "It was rather boring waiting there all alone; but perhaps Sir Archie will kindly fall down again for my special benefit," and she laughed with the innocent, careless laughter, of a child.
CHAPTER VII.
The laugh floated up to Drake as he sat and finished his pipe, waiting until the party should get clear away, and his lips tightened grimly. Then he sighed and shrugged his shoulders, as he rose and went slowly up the hill.
After all, Lucille had only acted as he had expected. As he had said, she had engaged herself to Viscount Selbie, the heir to Angleford—not to Viscount Selbie, whose nose had been put out of joint by his uncle's marriage. He could not have expected a Lady Lucille Turfleigh to be faithful to her troth under such changed circumstances. But her desertion made him sore, if not actually unhappy. Indeed, he was rather surprised to find that he was more wounded in pride than heart. It is rather hurtful to one's vanity and self-esteem to be told by the woman whom you thought loved you, that she finds it "impossible" to marry you because you have lost your fortune or your once roseate prospects; and though Drake was the least conceited of men, he was smarting under the realization of his anticipations.