"I suppose you couldn't help it," she said, with a catch in her breath, "and it is very kind of you, of course, and I am obliged and all that; but if you wouldn't mind leaving me I should prefer it. I don't want any tea, thanks; all I want is to get home."
"I--I am sorry," he stammered, utterly taken aback.
"Oh, don't be sorry!" she interrupted; "it has nothing to do with you, I assure you. Only it is so strange at first. Good-bye."
She was off at a dignified walk, with her head in the air, in an opposite direction before he had recovered from his mingled surprise and consternation at the effect his proposal had had on her. At any rate, she had not been indifferent, and this thought bringing a certain consolation with it, he made his way down to the picnic party, and was soon recovering his equanimity over scones and jam.
Marjory, on the other hand, felt her indignation grow as she hurried along, regardless of briars and brakes, to the shore beyond the Narrowest, where, out of sight of the others, she might hope to find a boat which would ferry her across the loch.
She found one, but hardly what she desired, since, as she made her way through the alder brakes to a projecting rock, she saw the "Tubhaneer" lying close in, with Paul Macleod and Alice Woodward in the stern, while her brother and two of the children were lolling about in the bows. They had been amusing themselves by tacking lazily about in the slack water.
She would have beaten a quick retreat had not Paul's eye been quicker and a swift turn of the rudder shown her that she was observed.
"Oh, don't trouble," she called, "I only want to get across, and I'll find one of the rowing boats about, I expect."
"They are above," he called back; "the tide is running out fast now, so I sent them to the upper bay. Just step on the further rock, if you can, and I'll run her up to it for a second."
There was something in the easy familiarity and decision of his manner which always soothed her into reasonable compliance, and the next minute she found herself apologising to Alice Woodward as the bellying sail slanted them across the loch.