"So you think the one with the eyes most interesting? and I don't." She raised the flotsam jetsam in her slender hands, scanning it more closely. "I wonder if you would give me this, professor," she said suddenly. "I've taken a great fancy to it." "My dear lady! I am only relieved to find you have not chosen the other," he replied with a gallant bow. "In either case, however, your desire is my law." "I believe that beast of a thing is going down again," muttered Mr. Wilson from the mantelpiece. "The _Clansman_ will never be able to come in to-morrow. It's too bad of Hooper, upon my soul it is." "My dear fellow," remonstrated Eustace, "anything will go down if it is continually thumped. It's a lovely day, a bit blowy, but it always blows on this coast. The warmth of the Gulf Stream." "Ah, confound the Gulf Stream!" Lady Maud turned to her husband in surprise. "What is the matter to-day, Edward? I didn't know a valet was such a hero to his master. Why, Josephine hasn't done a hand's turn since she caught sight of the steamer at Oban, but I don't complain." He muttered something about Hooper having been with him for years and stood looking gloomily out of the window with his back turned to everybody. Eustace Gordon gave a half-contemptuous shrug of his shoulders and a look at his cousin. "Come out and see the ghillies, Wilson," he said. "By the way, I sent to the inn for whiskey this morning; you see, professor, nothing can be done without it in these parts, so I hope you are not a total abstainer." The professor coughed gently. "I believe I am on principle. But having observed the fact you mention, I invariably carry a flask with me on my walking tours, merely, of course, as a means of acquiring information." Mr. Wilson burst into sudden boisterous laughter. "A good joke that. Come along! We all have a thirst for knowledge on us this morning." Lady Maud, left alone with the two carven images, took up the sea-waif and carried it off to her own sanctum, where she stuck it in the place of honour on the mantelshelf. Then, walking to the window, she looked out on pale green jostling waves and purple-green swaying heather. "I wonder when Louisa will turn up," she thought irrelevantly. "After all, she would have done better to come on with us and get it over, instead of waiting in the yacht for calmer weather. Suppose it were never to calm down?" She threw open the window with a reckless laugh. The fresh wind raced in, bellying the curtains like sails, catching her slender figure with such force that she was fain to cling to the sash as to a mast. So standing, with that background of surging sea, and one hand keeping her hair from her eyes, she looked as if she were adrift and searching the horizon for some familiar landmark. "Here's luck, and wissing you may all go back as you came, without any mistakes whatever."