"We might have gone this morning if it hadn't been Fast Day," continued Cynthia, aggrieved. "Couldn't we bribe somebody? I want to go awfully, and so does the professor."
"My failure to do so will be the only regret which can possibly mingle with my memories of Roederay."
"Can't think why you all want to see it," remarked the captain, frowning at the professor's complimentary bows. "I went over one day--yes, I did, Miss Strong--to shoot seals. Didn't get any--worse luck! But it wasn't a bit pretty. Sand and bones and a stone coffin or two. The ghillie told me, too, that sometimes, after a north wind, it was awfully grim. The sand blows off, don't you know, and leaves skeletons and things. Not at all the place for ladies, don't you know."
"I'm sorry to be obliged to differ," retorted Cynthia sharply. "In my opinion, there are no places where a woman should not be."
"Nihil continget quod non ornavit," paraphrased the professor.
The captain's head held itself very high. "Perhaps I am wrong, but I don't think so. However, as you wish to see it, Miss Strong, I shall be delighted to row you over in the small boat. Only we must start at slack tide; that is, about three in the afternoon."
"Too late, I'm afraid," replied the young lady disconsolately. "We ought to be starting for the hotel before six; oughtn't we, Maud?"
"Oh, we could manage it," he went on, seeing in this plan the chance of the tête-à-tête on which his mind was set. "If the wagonette were to pick us up at the cross-roads, we should have heaps of time. It would only be starting two hours earlier,--before the others, I mean."
"What do you say, professor?" asked Cynthia sweetly.
Arthur Weeks ground his teeth, and turned away with a murmur about the boat being heavy.