“Algy is going away to-morrow!” say I, presently.

“So he told me.”

“This is his last evening here!” (in a rather dolorous tone).

“So I should gather,” laughing a little at the obviousness of my last piece of information.

“And yet,” say I, looking down through the clear water at a dead tree-bough lying at the bottom, and sighing, “he is going to dine out to-night—­to dine with Mrs. Huntley.”

“With Mrs. Huntley! when?” with a long-drawn whistle of intelligence.

“Tell me,” cry I, impulsively, raising myself from my reclining pose, and sitting upright, “you will understand better than I do—­perhaps it is my mistake—­but, if you had seen a person only once for five or ten minutes, would you sign yourself ‘Yours very sincerely’ to them?”

He laughs dryly.

“Not unless I was writing after dinner—­why?”

“Nothing—­no reason!”

Again he laughs.

“I think I can guess.”

“Her name is Zephine,” say I again, leaning over the boat-side and pulling my forefinger slowly to and fro through the warm brown water.

“I am well aware of that fact” (smiling).

How near the swans are drawing toward us!  One, with his neck well thrown back, and his wings raised and ruffled, sailing along like a lovely snow-white ship; another, with less grace and more homeliness, standing on his head, with black webs paddling out behind.

“You were quite wrong on Sunday—­quite,” say I, speaking with sudden abruptness, and reddening.

“On Sunday!” (throwing his luminous dark eyes upward to the light clouds and faint blue of the August sky above us, as if to aid his recollection), “nothing more likely—­but what about?”

“About—­Roger,” I answer, speaking with some difficulty ("and Mrs. Huntley,” I was going to add, but some superstition hinders me from coupling their names even in a sentence).

“I dare say”—­carelessly—­“but what new light have you had thrown upon the matter?”

“I asked her,” I say, looking him full in the face, with simple directness.

“Asked her!” repeats he, with an accent of profound astonishment.  “Asked the woman whether she had been engaged to him, and jilted him?  Impossible!”

“No! no!” cry I, with tremulous impatience, “of course not; but I asked her whether she used not to know him in India, and she said, ’Yes, we met several times,’ just like that—­she no more blushed and looked confused than I should if any one asked me whether I knew you!”

He is still leaning over the punt, and has begun to dabble as I did.

“You certainly have a way of putting things very strongly,” he says in a rather low voice, “convincingly so!”

“She did not even know what part of the world he was in!” I cry, triumphantly.

“Did she say so?” (lifting up his face, and speaking quickly).