"Believe so. I haven't sailed since I'm married."
Stuart's grunt was expressive of many things.
"The 'Tyke'?" cried Aureole. "What a horrid name! It shows how much imagination you men have, left to yourselves," in languid disdain.
Stuart promised her that she should re-christen the boat. And after fixing the final arrangements, took his leave.
"Even chances on 'Tiger Queen' or 'Serpent o' the Nile,' I should imagine." Thus he speculated on the re-naming of the 'Tyke,' as he walked towards Grosvenor Square.
But Aureole decided that night on 'Faustina,' in deference to her own pleasingly lurid, though unfortunately forgotten past.
He wrote to Peter: "Meet me Tuesday, Liverpool Street, ten-fourteen. We're out for a week's sailing on the Norfolk Broads. Never mind about the moralities; I've arranged for those. Throw overboard other people's objections--and your own. Don't wonder if you ought to indulge me by giving in; we'll have no battle here,--you've just to come, and leave the rest to me. Bring as little luggage as possible--we travel light."
"All right"; and then in a postscript: "Were you being symbolical about the luggage?"
"You--dear! No, of course not. Damn symbolism! I was thinking of porters."
"Garden-party weather," grumbled Stuart. "S'pose they think they're doing us a favour; one doesn't want a breeze for sailing,--oh, no! Strawberries and cream and a band on the lawn, that's all the day's fit for."
Oliver lumbered indoors to work: "Call me when the wind gets up." And Peter announced her intention of going out in the dinghy.
"Shall I come with you?" queried Stuart lazily, from where he stretched on the grass at Aureole's side.
Instantly he sprang to his feet and followed her down to the bank, fell determination in his countenance.
"Go back, Stuart," she whispered; "you can't leave Aureole alone; she's our hostess."
He protested: "Hang it! _I_ gave her the bungalow."
"Untie the rope!" Without heeding his complaints, she sprang into the dinghy, where it floated beside 'Faustina,' née 'Tyke'; and stood upright, scull in hand, looking up at her comrade on the bank, with the coolly indifferent air of being perfectly well able to dispense with his companionship. Her white flannel shirt, flung open to show the tanned throat; the clean line where her hair sprang upwards from the neck; the alert poise of her figure, seemed all to have gathered up and expressed the personality of the background: water quivering in the sunlight, dazzling white canvas of sails, short bright green grass of the banks, masts and ropes slicing and interslicing against a china-blue sky. Peter resembled an adventurer setting forth in silence to find the beginning of the world. Aureole, exotically reclining with hands clasped behind her head, had more the appearance of one who had found the end of the world and was prepared to talk about it. Stuart flung her a discontented look over his shoulder.