The Laird seemed greatly delighted. His step on the deck was firmer. In the pauses of the conversation she heard something about—
tántará! Sing tántará!
"Will ye take your maid with ye?" he asked of her, abruptly.
The girl looked up with a bewildered air—perhaps with a trifle of alarm in her eyes.
"I, sir?"
"Ha, ha!" said he, laughing, "I forgot. Ye have not been invited yet. No more have I. But—if the yacht were ready—and—and if ye were going—ye would take your maid, no doubt, for comfort's sake?"
The girl looked reassured. She said, cheerfully:
"Well, sir, I don't suppose I shall ever go yachting again, after I leave the White Dove. And if I were, I don't suppose I should be able to afford to have a maid with me, unless the dealers in London should suddenly begin to pay me a good deal more than they have done hitherto."
At this point she was summoned below by her hostess calling. The Laird was left alone on deck. He continued to pace up and down, muttering to himself, with a proud look on his face.
"A landscape in every panel, as I'm a living man! ... Tom 'll do it well, when I tell him who it's for.... The leddies' cabin blue and silver—cool in the summer—the skylight pented—she'll no be saying that the Scotch are wanting in taste when she sees that cabin!