"No, Roy—no—you know very well you don't think I'm pretty——"
"Well, you aren't ugly," said he.
(Great heavens! She "wasn't ugly"!)
"Very well, Mr. Statue," she thought, compressing those irregular lips whose degree of prettiness he estimated so nicely. "I'm going to be pretty in a very few minutes, and you're going to tell me so."
"No, Roy," she said aloud; "just let's sit and talk—sensibly—I don't know what made you behave like this all of a sudden——"
And there was none to say "Provoking hussy!"
An hour later they rose. It was too late to go to the yacht now. They walked together back to the stile. Their shoulders overlapped. The kisses came easily now.
"Then we'll go aboard her to-morrow?" he said.
"Very well."
"'Once aboard the lugger'—ha, ha—but of course she's a cutter, not a lugger. That's just a saying, 'Once aboard the lugger.'"