"I don't mean to be anything else," interrupted Marmaduke decidedly, "so your plan of my making money by dancing with you is out of the question." "Not on six months' sick leave, under an assumed name? Now, Duke, listen and don't interrupt. If you and I join forces and run away from here, I will engage to get the money for your majority. I tell you any manager would advance two thousand on the _fandango_ alone--or Jack Jardine could finance one half--as he always does, and I the other. Then you could join, get leave, disappear, have a real stunning six months with me--London, Paris, Vienna perhaps. You don't know what the life is like, Duke--and I'm not jealous or exacting. I like to amuse myself, and so should you." He looked at her admiringly. "What an imagination you have!" he said. "And you settle everything so quickly. You remind me----" And here the thought of Marrion Paul made him suddenly shift back to the thwart and begin to scull once more. "We are nearing the current," he said apologetically, "and she needs steering--and so do I!" he added, with a charming smile, "so go on, please, with your imaginations." She gave him a sharp look, saw he had still some fight left in him, and like a good fisherman let him have his head a bit. "Of course it is all imagination," she assented, "and it depends on whether you think it worth while to pay the price I ask for all this. I am five years older than you are, Duke" (in reality she was fifteen, but under a rose-lined sun hat years disappear), "but I am still attractive." She said the word so cunningly that he laid on his oars and bent forward till his burning eyes were close to hers. "Attractive!" he echoed. "You're more than that, and you know it--at any rate, I do!" "I am glad of it," she assented, "for it makes it easier for both of us; but, as I said, I don't want to dwell on our feelings, they are too recent to be--er--reliable. It is purely as business that I put it to you. I want to get back to the old life, if I can do it with any chance of success. Last night showed me I could. But I also want to be Lady Drummuir. You want to get your majority, and also--there is no use in mincing words--to spite your father for not giving you the money. Now all these desires can be combined----" The grating of the keel on a shingly shore interrupted her, and Marmaduke stood up, shipped his oars, and held out both his hands. "Let's leave it for the time, little lady, or you'll persuade me out of my persuasion that you're right. There's the most ideal spot for lovers just round that rock. Let's go there and forget everything and everybody except that I am the most delightful man in the world, and you are the most delightful--and attractive--woman!" The hint of artificiality in his tone made her frown, but there was frank sensual admiration in his look as he set her down after lifting her from the boat.