"Very good of you," said Major Hunt-Goring, his eyes boldly passing her to rest upon Violet. "Managed to crack my thumb tinkering at my old motor. Dr. Wyndham tells me that you have been kind enough to ask me to lunch. How do you do, Miss Campion? Charmed to meet you! Someone told me you were yachting in the Atlantic."
"Heaven forbid!" said Violet. "Yachting is simply another word for imprisonment to me. I told Bruce I should certainly drown myself if I went with them."
"I should like to introduce you to a form of yachting that is not imprisonment," said Hunt-Goring.
Violet laughed. "Oh, I should have to be mistress of the yacht for that."
"Even so," he rejoined significantly.
"And I shouldn't have any men on board with the exception of the sailors," she went on.
"And the captain," said Hunt-Goring.
"Oh, dear me, no! I would be my own captain."
"You'd be horribly bored before the first week was out," observed the major, as he followed her into the dining-room.
She laughed gaily. "There isn't a single man of my acquaintance in whose company I shouldn't be bored to extinction long before that."