"Surely, my dear Miss Marjory," said the Reverend James, breaking in on the girl's half-questioning appeal, "we are to be changed in the twinkling of an eye?"
"And marriage, Miss Carmichael?" put in Paul, quietly, passing by the last remark as if it, too, had been non-existent. "You left out marriage in your philosophy."
Her face fell, yet softened.
"I do not know; it is like the Green Ray, something to dream about."
"To dream about! Ah! that sort of marriage is, I own, beyond the vision of ordinary humanity."
"But indeed there is nothing scientifically impossible in the Green Ray. You have only to get the angle of refraction equal to the----"
"Spare me, please. If I have to swallow romance I prefer it undisguised. Even as a boy I refused powders in jam."
"Wish I had," grumbled Will, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "I have never been able to eat black-currant jelly in consequence. And it is awfully nice in itself. Come, Marjory, we ought to be going."
"It is very hard to get rid of acquired tastes," muttered Paul, in an undertone, as he rose, and quite familiarly held out his hand to help Marjory to her feet also. "For instance, it will be difficult to forget the flavour of the past fortnight."
"Why should you forget it?" They were standing apart from the others, who were looking eastward to see if the boatmen were ready.