“And so you want Cecilia to see you with your hair down,” I sneered.

“Men are too dense!” was all she vouchsafed me. “He’s a popinjay of a professional heart-breaker.”

“I suppose you’ll know what they’ll say about you?” I tried another tack.

“I know what they’ll think,” she told me, with her inimitable calm.

“If you have the nerve, it’s no business of mine,” I conceded.

“Felicia’ll be so busy scolding me that she’ll forget all about you,” she suggested, naïvely.

“There’s something in that,” I was manly enough to confess.

The boat now lay-to in the shallow water. Phillips hailed us.

“You’ll have to put your hair up,” I told her. “They’ve got no dinghy. We’ll have to swim for it.”

“And wet myself all over again? No, indeed; you’ll have to carry me,” she calmly announced. “They can come inshore as far as that.”