"You're dead set on that match," said Callaghan.
"I am. It's most important that it should come off."
"She's a fine girl," said Callaghan. "She's too good for the like of Simpkins. He'll be tormenting her the way he does be tormenting everybody about the place."
"Believe you me," said Meldon, "she'll know how to manage him."
"She might," said Callaghan. "By the looks of her, when she left you this minute, I wouldn't say but she might."
CHAPTER VIII.
It was eight o'clock, and the evening was deliciously warm. Major Kent and Meldon sat in hammock chairs on the gravel outside Portsmouth Lodge. They had dined comfortably, and their pipes were lit. For a time neither of them spoke. Below them, beyond the wall which bounded the lawn, lay the waters of the bay, where the Spindrift, Major Kent's yacht, hung motionless over her mooring-buoy. The eyes of both men were fixed on her.
"I feel," said Meldon at last, "like the village blacksmith."
"There are four in Ballymoy," said the Major. "Reilly is the man who works for me. If you feel like him, I'm sorry for you. He's generally drunk at this hour."