"And I've wanted you, old chap," he answers, putting his arm round the brown-holland waist.
"Empey, we always do get on well together, don't we?"
"Of course we do,"—with a squeeze.
"Then, just to please me, won't you be a little kind to poor Tim? He's not a splendid fellow like you, and he knows he never will be. I do so want you to forget that he's a nobody. We are all so much more comfortable when we don't remember things of that sort. You're not angry, Empey?"
"Angry; no, you silly old thing!"
And then she knows, without any more words, that he will grant her request.
The little boat that Claude has hired is waiting for them at the landing-place, and Bee steps into it with the lightest of hearts. Aunt Hetty and the rest will follow in a larger boat; but Mr. Molyneux has resolved to row Miss Beatrice Jocelyn himself.
He rows as he does everything, easily and gracefully, and Bee watches him with happy blue eyes as they go gliding over the warm sea. How still it is to-day! Beyond the grey rocks and yellow sands they can see the golden harvest fields full of standing sheaves, and still farther away there are low hills faintly outlined through the hot mist. The little town, with its irregularly-built terraces, looks dazzlingly white in the sunshine; but the church, standing on high ground, lifts a red spire into the hazy blue.
"I could live on the sea!" says Bee ecstatically. "You don't know what it costs me to come out of a boat; I always want this lovely gliding feeling to go on for ever. Don't you?"
"I like it awfully," he replies; "but then there are other things that I want to do by-and-by. I mean to try my hand at tiger-shooting when I go out to the governor."