"Perhaps he doesn't," said the Major. "Any way, you can do no more than you've done. You may as well drop it now, and have the rest of your holiday in peace."
"The fact is," said Meldon, "I ought not to have gone away and left them. I had no business to take that cruise in the Spindrift. If I'd been here—"
"I don't see what you could have done. If the fellow doesn't want the girl, how could you force him to go and marry her? Any way, it's a good job for Miss King that he hasn't."
"If I'd been here—" said Meldon, and then paused.
"What would you have done?"
"I'd have done what I'm going to do now that I'm back."
"And what's that?"
"Throw them together," said Meldon. "Insist on his being constantly with her until he begins to appreciate her charm. I defy any one, any one who's not already married, to resist Miss King if she looks at him out of the corners of her eyes as she did at me the other day."
"She won't do that," said the Major. "No woman would, once she had seen Simpkins."
"Oh, she'll do it all right. Don't you fret about that. All I have to do is to give her a proper opportunity by throwing them together a bit."