“Of course we are,” said Eleanor, relenting.
He brightened at once.
“Well,” he said, impulsively, “you see Charlie says he doesn’t want me to let you and those two girls–Bessie and Zara–out of my sight until he comes. Couldn’t you all come out for a sail with me in my motor launch? We could have supper on board and it would be lots of fun, I think.”
Eleanor looked doubtful.
“I don’t know about leaving the camp,” she said. “I ought to be here to keep an eye on things.”
“Oh, you can go perfectly well, Miss Eleanor,” said Margery Burton. “It will do Bessie and Dolly a lot of good if you take them–they’ve had a pretty exciting day. And we can ask all the Halsted girls over to supper, and Miss Turner will be with them. She can take your place as Guardian for a few hours, can’t she?”
“If she will come. Why, yes, that would make it all right,” said Eleanor. Somehow she found that she wasn’t half as strong-minded and self-reliant when this very masterful young man was around. “You might go over and see, Margery, if you will.”
“Splendid!” said Trenwith. “We’ll have a perfectly bully time, I know. You keep at it too hard, Miss Mercer–really you do!”
“We won’t go very far, will we?” said Eleanor, yielding to the lure of a sail at sunset.
“Oh, no, just a few miles down the coast. There’s a lot of pretty scenery you ought to see–and I’ve got a man who helps me to run my boat who’s a perfect wizard at cooking, We’ve got a sort of imitation kitchen on board, but he does things in it that would make the chef of a big hotel envious. He’s one of the few things I boast about.”