"If you doubt me," I said, "I shall tell you what she is going to do next. She is about to steam in here and lower a boat to take me aboard."
"She's heading for Dartmouth," said Verna incredulously, and the words were hardly out of her pretty mouth when Babcock swung round and pointed the Tallahassee's nose straight at us.
For a moment Verna was too overcome to speak.
"Fyles," she said at last, "you told me you worked in an office!"
"So I do," I said.
"And own a vessel like that!" she exclaimed. "A yacht the size of a man-of-war!"
"It was you that said I was a poor young man," I observed. "I was so pleased at being called young that I let the poor pass."
"Fancy!" she exclaimed, looking at me with eyes like stars. And then, recovering herself, she added in another tone: "Now don't you think it was very forward to rendezvous at a private castle?"
"Oh, I thought I could make myself solid before she arrived," I said.
"Fyles," she said, "I am beginning to have a different opinion of you. You are not as straightforward as a ffrench ought to be—and, though I'm ashamed to say it of you—but you are positively conceited."