He caught himself in the act even of trying to fix Miss Dassonville's eye to include her by complicity in the beguilement of the captain, a business which she seemed to have undertaken on her own account on quite other grounds.

He perceived with a kind of pride for her that she had the ways of elderly sea-going gentlemen by heart.

It was something even if she had failed to charm Peter, that she shouldn't be found quite wanting in it by other men.
When they had put him back aboard of the _Merrythought_ they had come to such a pitch among them all, that as the captain leaned above the rail to launch an invitation, he addressed it to Miss Dassonville, as, if not quite the giver of the feast, the mistress of the situation.
"When are you coming to lunch with me ?" demanded the captain.
"Never!" declared Miss Dassonville.

"It would be quite out of the question to have hot cakes for luncheon, and I absolutely refuse to come for anything less." "There's something quite as good," asserted the captain, "that I'll bet you haven't had in as long." "Better than hot cakes ?" Miss Dassonville was skeptical.
"Pie," said the captain.
"Oh, _Pie!_" in mock ecstasy.

"Well, I'd come for pie," and with that they parted.
Peter had plenty of time for considering where he found himself that afternoon, for the ladies were bent on a shopping expedition on which they had rather pointedly given him to understand he was not expected to attend.