“Is it likely?” said Stafford, with a smile, as he signed to the man to bring up a skiff.  “Now, let me make you as comfortable as I can.  We ought to have had a gondola,” he added, as he handed her to the seat in the stern.

She leant back with her sunshade over her shoulder, and Stafford, as he slipped off his blazer and rowed out towards the centre of the lake, looked at her with unconscious admiration.  She was simply, perfectly dressed in a yachting costume of white and pale-blue, which set off to the fullest advantage her exquisite complexion and her red-gold hair.  But it was admiration of the coldest kind, for even at that moment he was thinking of the girl in the well-worn habit, the girl he loved with a passion that made his slightest thought of her a psalm of worship.

And Maude, though she appeared half asleep, like a beautiful wild animal basking in the warmth of the sun, glanced at him now and again and noted the strength and grace of his figure, the almost Grecian contour of the handsome face.  She had made her wager with Howard on the spur of the moment, prompted by the vanity of a woman piqued by the story of Stafford’s indifference to her sex; but as she looked at him she wondered how a woman would feel if she fell in love with him.  But she had no fears for herself; there was a coldness in her nature which had hitherto guarded her from the fever which men call love, and she thought herself quite secure.  There would be amusement, triumph, in making him love her, in winning her wager with that cynical Mr. Howard, who boasted of his friend’s invulnerability; and when she had conquered, and gratified her vanity—­Ah, well, it would be easy to step aside and bring the curtain down upon her triumph and Stafford’s discomfiture.  She would wear that Mr. Howard’s ring, and every time she looked at it, it should remind her of her conquest.

Stafford rowed on in silence for some minutes.  His beautiful companion did not seem to want him to talk and certainly showed no desire to talk herself; so he gave himself up to thinking of Ida—­and wishing that it was she who was sitting opposite him there, instead of this girl with the face of a Grecian goddess, with the lustrous hair of an houri.  At last, feeling that he ought to say something, he remarked, as he gazed at the marvellous view: 

“Very beautiful, isn’t it?”

She raised her eyes and let them wander from the glittering water to the glorious hills.

“Yes, I suppose it is.  I’m afraid I don’t appreciate scenery as much as other people do.  Perhaps it is because one is always expected to fall into raptures over it.  Does that shock you?  I’m afraid I shock most people.  The fact is, I have been brought up in a circle which has taught me to loathe sentiment.  They were always gushing about their feelings, but the only thing they cared for was money!”

“That ought to have made you loathe money,” said Stafford, with a smile, and a certain kind of interest; indeed, it was difficult not to feel interested in this beautiful girl, with the face and the form of a goddess, and, apparently, as small a capacity of emotion.