that on this occasion, at least, he should neither do us
nor yet escape us.

About four o'clock the red-haired young man and his pretty little
wife came up to call for us. She looked so charming and squinted
so enchantingly, one could hardly believe she was not as simple
and innocent as she seemed to be. She tripped down to the Seldon
boat-house, with Charles by her side, giggling and squinting her
best, and then helped her husband to get the skiff ready. As she did
so, Charles sidled up to me. "Sey," he whispered, "I'm an old hand,
and I'm not readily taken in. I've been talking to that girl, and
upon my soul I think she's all right. She's a charming little lady.
We may be mistaken after all, of course, about young Granton. In any
case, it's well for the present to be courteous. A most important
option! If it's really he, we must do nothing to annoy him or let
him see we suspect him."

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 ingenue 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