"Clever, Pinky!" called his sister, derisively. "Confess that you rehearsed this before a mirror."
The luncheon ended. If anything had been wanting to prove how agreeable it had been, it appeared now in the pretty reluctance with which the ladies rose. There was the customary pushing back of chairs, smoothing down of garments, recovering of handkerchiefs from beneath the board. The room and the table were the objects of new compliments, given in farewell.
"Who would have dreamed," said Mary, looking back from the door at her father's perfectly appointed room, "that yachts were as nice as this?"
"And to think," said Mrs. Marne, "that it was all done by a Mere Man."
McTosh, the mere man in question, blushed violently behind his deft hand.
They stepped up on deck into the shade of a great striped awning, and loitered along the side, caught by the beauty of the late summer scene. Sky and water and green wood blended into practised perfectness. The rippling water was blue as the heavens, which was very blue indeed. The sun kissed it like a lover.
"Will some one kindly tell me," demanded Hare, referring to his sister's remark, "how the superstition arose that men have no taste?"
"I have read," said Mary idly, her back against the rail, "that it was invented by the authority who started the slander about women's having no sense of humor."
"Why, they haven't, have they?"
"You're wrong there, Hare," said Peter, out of his fathomless ignorance.
"For my part I think that women are often more amusing than men."