That silly ass Simpkins has actually flung
away a priceless opportunity. He hasn't been near her."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Major Kent. "Perhaps now you'll stop your
foolish games."

"Could she have gone out to meet him anywhere?" said Meldon to
Callaghan.

"She could not. It wouldn't be possible for her to do the like
unbeknown to me, for I had my eye on her."

"All day?"

"After what your reverence was saying to me I'd have been afraid to let
her out of my sight."

"Very well, Callaghan, you can go home. I shall have to think the
matter over. I don't deny that I'm disappointed. I thought when I saw
you standing there on the shore that you'd have had some definite news
for me."

"I was up at the Major's house searching for you," said Callaghan, "and
when you weren't within I took a look round and I seen the yacht coming
in on the tide, so I thought it would save me a journey to-morrow if I
waited for you."

"Quite right," said Meldon. "It's not your fault nothing has happened,
and I don't blame you in the least. Good-night."

Callaghan shambled off along the beach. The Major and Meldon, who
carried the punt's oars, struck across the fields towards Portsmouth
Lodge.

"I can't understand it at all," said Meldon. "After what I said to
Simpkins I simply can't understand his neglecting his opportunities
like this. You'd think from the way he's behaving that he doesn't want
to be married at all."

"Perhaps he doesn't," said the Major. "Any way, you can do no more
than you've done. You may as well drop it now, and have the rest of
your holiday in peace."

"The fact is," said Meldon, "I ought not to have gone away and left
them. I had no business to take that cruise in the _Spindrift_. If
I'd been here--"

"I don't see what you could have done. If the fellow doesn't want the
girl, how could you force him to go and marry her? Any way, it's a
good job for Miss King that he hasn't."

"If I'd been here--" said Meldon, and then paused.

"What would you have done?"

"I'd have done what I'm going to do now that I'm back."

"And what's that?"

"Throw them together," said Meldon. "Insist on his being constantly
with her until he begins to appreciate her charm. I defy any one, any
one who's not already married, to resist Miss King if she looks at him
out of the corners of her eyes as she did at me the other day."

"She won't do that," said the Major. "No woman would, once she had
see