Wilmore had to decline Miss Halkett’s invitation to him as well as his friend, and returned in his boat.  He left the pair with a ruffling breeze, and a sky all sail, prepared, it seemed to him, to enjoy the most delicious you-and-I on salt water that a sailor could dream of; and placidly envying, devoid of jealousy, there was just enough of fancy quickened in Lieutenant Wilmore to give him pictures of them without disturbance of his feelings—­one of the conditions of the singular visitation we call happiness, if he could have known it.

For a time his visionary eye followed them pretty correctly.  So long since they had parted last! such changes in the interval! and great animation in Beauchamp’s gaze, and a blush on Miss Halkett’s cheeks.

She said once, ‘Captain Beauchamp.’  He retorted with a solemn formality.  They smiled, and immediately took footing on their previous intimacy.

‘How good it was of you to come twice to Mount Laurels,’ said she.  ’I have not missed you to-day.  No address was on your card.  Where are you staying in the neighbourhood?  At Mr. Lespel’s?’

‘I’m staying at a Bevisham hotel,’ said Beauchamp.

’You have not been to Steynham yet?  Papa comes home from Steynham to-night.’

’Does he?  Well, the Ariadne is only just paid off, and I can’t well go to Steynham yet.  I—­’ Beauchamp was astonished at the hesitation he found in himself to name it:  ‘I have business in Bevisham.’

‘Naval business?’ she remarked.

‘No,’ said he.

The sensitive prescience we have of a critical distaste of our proceedings is, the world is aware, keener than our intuition of contrary opinions; and for the sake of preserving the sweet outward forms of friendliness, Beauchamp was anxious not to speak of the business in Bevisham just then, but she looked and he had hesitated, so he said flatly, ‘I am one of the candidates for the borough.’

‘Indeed!’

‘And I want the colonel to give me his vote.’

The young lady breathed a melodious ‘Oh!’ not condemnatory or reproachful—­a sound to fill a pause.  But she was beginning to reflect.

‘Italy and our English Channel are my two Poles,’ she said.  ’I am constantly swaying between them.  I have told papa we will not lay up the yacht while the weather holds fair.  Except for the absence of deep colour and bright colour, what can be more beautiful than these green waves and that dark forest’s edge, and the garden of an island!  The yachting-water here is an unrivalled lake; and if I miss colour, which I love, I remind myself that we have temperate air here, not a sun that fiends you under cover.  We can have our fruits too, you see.’  One of the yachtsmen was handing her a basket of hot-house grapes, reclining beside crisp home-made loaflets.  ‘This is my luncheon.  Will you share it, Nevil?’

His Christian name was pleasant to hear from her lips.  She held out a bunch to him.