He took off his cap, and moved away—to the extent of a single step. She was still standing in the boat.
“By the way,” he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him; “do you intend going overland?”
The glamour of the moonlight failed to conceal the troubled look that came to her eyes. He regained the step that he had taken away from her, and remarked, “If you will be good enough to allow me, I will scull you with the one oar to any part of the coast that you may wish to reach. It would be a pleasure to me. I have nothing whatever to do. As a matter of fact, I don’t see that you have any choice in the matter.”
“I have not,” she said gravely. “I was a fool—such a fool! But—the story of the Princess—”
“Pray don’t make any confession to me,” said he. “If I had not heard the story of the Princess, should I be here either?”
“My name,” said she, “is Beatrice Avon. My father’s name you may have heard—most people have heard his name, though I’m afraid that not so many have read his books.”
“But I have met your father,” said he. “If he is Julius Anthony Avon, I met him some years ago. He breakfasted with my tutor at Oxford. I have read all his hooks.”
“Oh, come into the boat,” she cried with a laugh. “I feel that we have been introduced.”
“And so we have,” said he, stepping upon the gunwale so as to push off the boat. “Now, where is your best landing place?”
She pointed out to him a white cottage at the entrance to a glen on the opposite coast of the lough, just below the ruins—they could be seen by the imaginative eye—of the Castle of Carrigorm. The cottage was glistening in the moonlight.