The gentleman had not taken long to decide that the lady would do.  And now they were on the Foam together he had opportunities enough of wooing.  He availed himself of a courtly grace of manner, with sometimes an air of worship, which would have been tenderness had he felt like a lover.  Bessie was puzzled, and grew more and more ill at ease with him.  Absorbed in work, in thought, or in idle reverie and smoke, he appeared natural and happy; he turned his attention to her, and was gay, gracious, flattering, but all with an effort.  She wished he would not give himself the trouble.  She hated to be made to blush and stammer in her talk; it confused her to have him look superbly in her eyes; it made her angry to have him press her hand as if he would reassure her against a doubt.

Fortunately, the time was not long, for they began to bore one another immensely.  It was an exquisite morning when they anchored opposite Ryde, and the first day of the annual regatta.  At breakfast Mr. Cecil Burleigh quietly announced that he would now leave the yacht, and make his way home in a few days by the ordinary conveyances.  Mr. Frederick Fairfax, who was a consenting party to the family arrangement, suggested that Bessie might like to go on shore to see the town and the charming prospect from the pier and the strand.  Mr. Cecil Burleigh did not second the suggestion promptly enough to avoid the suspicion that he would prefer to go alone; and Bessie, who had a most sensitive reluctance to be where she was not wanted, made haste to say that she did not care to land—­she was quite satisfied to see the town from the water.  Thereupon the gentleman pressed the matter with so much insistance that, though she would much rather have foregone the pleasure than enjoy it under his escort, she found no polite words decisive enough for a refusal.

A white sateen dress embroidered in black and red, and a flapping leghorn hat tied down gypsy style with a crimson ribbon, was a picturesque costume, but not orthodox as a yachting costume at Ryde.  Bessie had a provincial French air in spite of her English face, and Mr. Cecil Burleigh perhaps regretted that she was not more suitably equipped for making her debut in his company.  He had a prejudice against peculiarity in dress, and knew that it was a terrible thing to be out of the fashion and to run the gauntlet of bold eyes on Ryde pier.  At the seaside the world is idle, and has nothing to do but stare and speculate.  Bessie had beauty enough to be stared at for that alone, but it was not her beauty that attracted most remark; it was her cavalier and the singularity of her attire.  Poor child! with her own industrious fingers had she lavishly embroidered that heathen embroidery.  The gentlemen were not critically severe; the ladies looked at her, and looked again for her escort’s sake, and wondered how this prodigiously fine gentleman came to have foregathered with so outlandish a blushing girl; for Bessie, when she perceived herself an object of curious observation, blushed furiously under the unmitigated fire of their gaze.  And most heartily did she wish herself back again on board the Foam.