"No. You don't say so! Kill both my birds with one stone, eh?"
The girl held out her hand to Philip. "I shall have to go back, Mr. Barrison. Daddy, take your card and write an order for Mr. Barrison and his friend to go over the yacht. They were just going to row out to it, and I was going with them. How little I thought it was you, dearest." She kissed him again and fumbled at her father's buttons.
Philip thought there was some reluctance in the cool glance the yachtsman flung him again. "Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Wilbur. Another time, perhaps."
"No, this minute," said Diana. Mr. Wilbur got at an inside pocket. "Mr. Barrison will take you deep-sea fishing if you can stay a few days. You have often spoken of it."
"A fisherman, eh?" said Mr. Wilbur, as he took out his card and wrote upon it.
Diana laughed nervously. "Oh, no, Daddy, but he knows the ropes here." She handed the card to Philip. "The Idlewild is worth visiting," she said, "and you never can tell with these yachtsmen. They slip off sometimes in the middle of the night. A bird in the hand, you know." She smiled. "Au revoir."
Philip, holding his card, looked after them as they went on up the road. Diana was hanging on her father's arm. The young fellow's face flushed deeply under the tan, and his lips came together firmly.
"That girl is worth all the adoration a man can waste on her," he thought. "I don't know that he is such a fool at that."
"What a summer, Veronica!" exclaimed Miss Burridge when she found that Charles Wilbur was going to eat mackerel and sweet potatoes at her table that noon.
"Some do have greatness thrust upon them, Aunt Priscilla. First the arrival of Prince Herbert, then King Charles himself."