Then the captain understood; and he almost fell at her feet, for the name of Raven Innes is honourably known from Lord's to Melbourne.
"Do you play yourself?" he asked.
"A bit. I don't bat quite straight, but I can bowl a little. Leg-breaks," she added, with a touch of pride.
The captain's appreciative reverie was interrupted by the appearance of a third party—Pip, to wit—who now drifted into view and hovered rather disconsolately in the offing, as if uncertain whether to approach. He was a prey to melancholy, having just completed a final rupture with Madeline Carr, and under the stress of subsequent reaction was anxious to escape home.
"Hallo!" said Cayley. "There's your man, Miss Innes."
Miss Innes glanced in Pip's direction.
"So it is. I can recognise him," she answered, with an air of gratified surprise. "Will you take me to have some strawberries now, please?"
The couple departed, leaving Pip still hove-to on the horizon.
"Rum things, women," mused the captain. "This girl's quite out of the common. I thought at first she must be keen on Pip, or something; but she doesn't seem even to know him. Not often you get a woman taking a purely sporting interest in a man like that!"
Which is nothing but the truth.