“Angel cousin!” cried Robinette. “Have you a little roast mutton about you somewhere, we are so hungry!”
“You are a pretty pair!” he remarked. “What have you been and done?”
“We just went for a row after tea, Middy dear,” said Robinette, “and look at the result.”
“You’re not rowing now,” observed Carnaby pointedly.
“No,” said Mark, “we gave up rowing when the water left us, Carnaby. Conversation is more interesting in the mud.”
“But how did you get here? I thought you were going to the Flag Rock?” demanded Carnaby.
“Is there a Flag Rock, Middy dear? I 176 didn’t know,” said Robinette innocently. “It shows we shouldn’t go anywhere without our first cousin once removed. We just began to talk, here in the boat, and the water went away and left us.” Then she laughed, and Mark laughed too, and Carnaby’s look of unutterable scorn seemed to have no effect upon them. They might almost have been laughing at him, their mirth was so senseless, viewed in any other light.
“It’s nearly eight o’clock,” he said solemnly. “Perhaps you can form some idea as to what grandmother’s saying, and Bates.”
“Well, you’re going to be our rescuer, Middy darling, so it doesn’t matter,” said Robinette. “Look! the water’s coming up.”
But Carnaby seemed in no mood for waiting. He had taken off his boots, and rolled up his trousers above his knees.