Beekman drew her back.
"At what landing-place?" he demanded, uncertain of her meaning. "What's going on?"
The girl fell back helplessly before him.
"Do you mean to tell me," she sighed forlornly, "that I have been here all this time with you without telling you the very thing I brought you here to tell?"
"I only know," he returned, likewise forlornly, "that you won't let me tell you the thing that for hours I've been trying to tell."
Leslie laughed gaily.
"It was very delightful listening, anyway," she admitted frankly. "But about this other thing—I told everybody here, that is, everybody that's to go, but you—and you, why I wanted you the most of all."
Beekman caught her hand and held it, despite her dignified little struggle.
"You're sure of that?"
"Quite sure," she replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You need a little tan—the sail would do you good. Why, twenty of us boys and girls,—besides some half-dozen chaperones—are going for the week-end on the Marchioness. Away out to sea as far as she can stand it, and back again. It ought to be good fun! There'll be only congenial people aboard—the right men for the right girls."