She gave him a sharp look, saw he had still some fight left in him, and like a good fisherman let him have his head a bit.
"Of course it is all imagination," she assented, "and it depends on whether you think it worth while to pay the price I ask for all this. I am five years older than you are, Duke" (in reality she was fifteen, but under a rose-lined sun hat years disappear), "but I am still attractive."
She said the word so cunningly that he laid on his oars and bent forward till his burning eyes were close to hers.
"Attractive!" he echoed. "You're more than that, and you know it--at any rate, I do!"
"I am glad of it," she assented, "for it makes it easier for both of us; but, as I said, I don't want to dwell on our feelings, they are too recent to be--er--reliable. It is purely as business that I put it to you. I want to get back to the old life, if I can do it with any chance of success. Last night showed me I could. But I also want to be Lady Drummuir. You want to get your majority, and also--there is no use in mincing words--to spite your father for not giving you the money. Now all these desires can be combined----"
The grating of the keel on a shingly shore interrupted her, and Marmaduke stood up, shipped his oars, and held out both his hands.
"Let's leave it for the time, little lady, or you'll persuade me out of my persuasion that you're right. There's the most ideal spot for lovers just round that rock. Let's go there and forget everything and everybody except that I am the most delightful man in the world, and you are the most delightful--and attractive--woman!"
The hint of artificiality in his tone made her frown, but there was frank sensual admiration in his look as he set her down after lifting her from the boat.
"I think," he said softly, as he held out a finger bleeding from the prick of a pin, "you are the daintiest, thorniest thing I ever touched. You're like the roses I gave you this morning, all colour, sweetness and scent, and--thorns."
Whereat they both laughed as they made their way to the ideal spot for lovers. To their surprise and discomfiture they found it already occupied by Margaret Muir, who was looking sentimentally out to sea with the Reverend Patrick Bryce's arm round her waist.