"I trust you will have nothing of the kind, Blanche," put in Paul, with unusual irritation. "I hate charitable pocket-picking. I beg your pardon for the crude expression, Miss Woodward, but I have some excuse. On one occasion in India I was set on by every lady in the station, with the result that I found twenty-five penwipers of sorts in my pocket when I got home." "Twenty-five, that was a large number," said Alice, stifling a yawn. "What did you do with them?" "Put them away in lavender as keepsakes, of course." "My dear Paul," put in his sister, hurriedly, recognising his unsafe mood. "We do things differently in England. We do not set on young men; we do not have----" "A superfluity of penwipers," interrupted her brother, becoming utterly exasperated; but as he looked out of the window he saw something which made him sit down again beside Alice Woodward, and devote himself to her amusement. Yet it was a sight which with most men would have had exactly the opposite effect, for it was a glimpse of a well-known figure battling with the wind and the rain along the ferry road. But Paul Macleod had made up his mind; besides, rather to his own surprise, the past few days had brought him very little of the restless desire to be with Marjory, which he had expected from his previous experiences in love. It was evidently a sentimental attack, unreal, fanciful, Arcadian, like the episode in which it had arisen. And yet a remark of his sister's at afternoon tea set him suddenly in arms. "Mr. Gillespie told me there was a girl staying at the Camerons', Paul, who was a sort of governess, or going to be one. And I thought--if she hadn't a dreadful accent, or anything of that sort, you know, of having her in the mornings for the children." "Miss Carmichael, Blanche," he broke in, at a white heat, "is a very charming girl, and I was going to ask you to call upon her, as soon as the weather allowed of it. I have seen a good deal of her during the last few weeks, and should like you to know her." Really, in his present mood, Paul was almost as bad as a dynamite bomb, or a high-pressure boiler in the back kitchen! Still, mindful of her sisterly devotion, Lady George covered his indiscretion gracefully. "Oh, she is that sort of person, is she? I must have misunderstood Mr. Gillespie, and I will call at once, for it is so pleasant, isn't it, Alice dear, for girls to have companions."