She laughed softly.

“You are a ridiculous person,” she said.  “I am very fond of my stepmother.  I think that she is a very clever woman.”

“Bah!” he exclaimed in disgust.  “A clever woman she may be, but a good woman, no!  I am sure of that.  You may judge a person by the company they keep.  Neither she or this man Forrest are fit associates for a child of your age.”

She laughed softly.

“They don’t do me any harm,” she said.  “Mr. De la Borne and Lord Ronald have asked me to marry them, of course, but then every young man does that when he knows who I am.  My stepmother has promised me at least that I shall not be bothered by any of them just yet.  I am going to be presented next season, we are going to have a house in town, and I am going to choose a husband of my own.”

It was Andrew now who looked long and steadily out seawards.  She watched him covertly from under her heavily lidded eyes.

“Mr. Andrew,” she said softly, “I wish very much—­”

Then she stopped short, and he looked at her a little abruptly.

“What is it that you wish?” he asked.

“I wish that you did not wear such strange clothes and that you did not talk the dialect of these fishermen, and that you had more money.  Then you too might come and see me, might you not, when we have that house in London?”

He laughed boisterously.

“I fancy I see myself in London, paying calls,” he declared.  “Give me my catboat and fishing line.  I’d rather sail down the home creek, with a northeast gale in my teeth, than walk down Piccadilly in patent boots.”

She sighed.

“I am afraid,” she admitted, “that as a town acquaintance you are hopeless.”

“I am afraid so,” he answered, looking steadily seawards.  “We country people have strong prejudices, you see.  It seems to us that all the sin and all the unhappiness and all the decadence and all the things that mar the beauty of the world, come from the cities and from life in the cities.  No wonder that we want to keep away.  It isn’t that we think ourselves better than the other folk.  It is simply that we have realized pleasures greater than we could find in paved streets and under smoke-stained skies.  We know what it is to smell the salt wind, to hear it whistling in the cords and the sails of our boats, to feel the warmth of the sun, to listen to the song of the birds, to watch the colouring of God’s land here.  I suppose we have the thing in our bloods; we can’t leave it.  We hear the call of the other things sometimes, but as soon as we obey we are restless and unhappy.  It is only an affair of time, and generally a very short time.  One cannot fight against nature.”

“No!” she answered softly.  “One cannot fight against nature.  But there are children of the cities, children of the life artificial as well as children of nature.  Look at me!”

He turned toward her quickly.