I had noticed, indeed, that Mrs. Granton had made herself most agreeable to Charles from the very beginning.  And as to one thing he was right.  In her timid, shrinking way she was undeniably charming.  That cast in her eye was all pure piquancy.

We rowed out on to the Firth, or, to be more strictly correct, the two Grantons rowed while Charles and I sat and leaned back in the stern on the luxurious cushions.  They rowed fast and well.  In a very few minutes they had rounded the point and got clear out of sight of the Cockneyfied towers and false battlements of Seldon.

Mrs. Granton pulled stroke.  Even as she rowed she kept up a brisk undercurrent of timid chaff with Sir Charles, giggling all the while, half forward, half shy, like a school-girl who flirts with a man old enough to be her grandfather.

Sir Charles was flattered.  He is susceptible to the pleasures of female attention, especially from the young, the simple, and the innocent.  The wiles of women of the world he knows too well; but a pretty little ingénue can twist him round her finger.  They rowed on and on, till they drew abreast of Seamew’s island.  It is a jagged stack or skerry, well out to sea, very wild and precipitous on the landward side, but shelving gently outward; perhaps an acre in extent, with steep gray cliffs, covered at that time with crimson masses of red valerian.  Mrs. Granton rowed up close to it.  “Oh, what lovely flowers!” she cried, throwing her head back and gazing at them.  “I wish I could get some!  Let’s land here and pick them.  Sir Charles, you shall gather me a nice bunch for my sitting-room.”

Charles rose to it innocently, like a trout to a fly.

“By all means, my dear child, I—­I have a passion for flowers;” which was a flower of speech itself, but it served its purpose.

They rowed us round to the far side, where is the easiest landing-place.  It struck me as odd at the moment that they seemed to know it.  Then young Granton jumped lightly ashore; Mrs. Granton skipped after him.  I confess it made me feel rather ashamed to see how clumsily Charles and I followed them, treading gingerly on the thwarts for fear of upsetting the boat, while the artless young thing just flew over the gunwale.  So like White Heather!  However, we got ashore at last in safety, and began to climb the rocks as well as we were able in search of the valerian.

Judge of our astonishment when next moment those two young people bounded back into the boat, pushed off with a peal of merry laughter, and left us there staring at them!

They rowed away, about twenty yards, into deep water.  Then the man turned, and waved his hand at us gracefully.  “Good-bye!” he said, “good-bye!  Hope you’ll pick a nice bunch!  We’re off to London!”

“Off!” Charles exclaimed, turning pale.  “Off!  What do you mean?  You don’t surely mean to say you’re going to leave us here?”

The young man raised his cap with perfect politeness, while Mrs. Granton smiled, nodded, and kissed her pretty hand to us.  “Yes,” he answered; “for the present.  We retire from the game.  The fact of it is, it’s a trifle too thin:  this is a coup manqué.”