"Pardon me," remarked the girl, "you shall carry it for me."
"A foregone conclusion, if you wish it, of course; but in that case you will simply add my services to your possessions. And in like manner you will dispense with them when I cease to be amusing. Woman all over!"
"Thanks, Gleneira!" laughed Will. "It does me good to hear Marjory kept in order. She bullies me awfully about shooting seals, and I fully expected her to sneeze or cough. She generally does."
"I knew you wouldn't hit," retorted Marjory, scornfully, "and it pleased you."
"'Pleased 'er and didn't 'urt me,' as the navvy said when his wife beat him," put in Paul. "By Jove! Miss Carmichael, if I had known what you thought, I would have put a bullet----"
"Hist!" cried Marjory, holding up her hand. There, within a stone's throw, was the smooth brown head, with large, liquid, confiding eyes turned towards the boat. Not a ripple, not a sound, showed that it was in motion, and yet it slipped past rapidly.
"Gorsh me! but the beast's tame," whispered John, unable to contain himself in the inaction; but the whisper might as well have been a clap of thunder, for the round head sank noiselessly into the water, leaving scarcely a ripple behind it.
"Why didn't you shoot, Captain Macleod?" asked Marjory, with an odd little tremor in her voice, at which she herself was dimly surprised; "you might have hit that time, for it couldn't have been more than fifteen yards off."
"I never thought of it," he replied quietly; "the beast looked so jolly."
"It looked quite as jolly when it was far away, no doubt."