“Well, no—­o—­” I answer, reluctantly; “but I said, ’He is in the West Indies,’ and she answered ‘Yes,’ or ‘Indeed,’ or ‘Is he?’ I forget which, but at any rate it implied that it was news to her.”

A pike leaps not far from us, and splashes back again.  I watch to see whether the widening faint circles will have strength to reach us, or whether the water’s smile will be smoothed and straightened before it gets to us.

“Did Mrs. Huntley happen to say” (leaning lazily back, and speaking carelessly), “how she liked her house?”

“No; why?”

“She has only just got into it,” he answers, slightly; “only about a fortnight, that is.”

“I wonder,” say I, ruminatingly, “what brought her to this part of the world, for she does not seem to know anybody.”

He does not answer.

“We ought to be friends, ought not we?” say I, beginning to laugh nervously, and looking appealingly toward him, “both of us coming to sojourn in a strange land!  It is a curious coincidence our both settling here in such similar circumstances, at almost the same time, is not it?”

Still he is silent.

“Is not it?” cry I, irritably, raising my voice.

Again he has thrown his head back, and is perusing the sky, his hands clasped round one lifted knee.

“What is a coincidence?” he says, languidly.  “I do not think I quite know—­I am never good at long words—­two things that happen accidentally at the same time, is not it?”

He lays the faintest possible stress on the word accidentally.

“And you mean to say that this in not accidental?” I cry, quickly.

“I mean nothing; I only ask for information.”

How still the world is to-day!  The feathery water-weeds sway, indeed, to and fro, with the motion of the water, but the tall cats’-tails, and all the flags, stand absolutely motionless.  I feel vaguely ruffled, and take up my forgotten book.  Holding it so as to hide my companion’s face from me, I begin to read ostentatiously.  He seems content to be silent; lying on the flat of his back, at the bottom of the punt, staring at the sky, and declining the overtures, and parrying the attacks, of Vick, who, having taken advantage of his supine position to mount upon his chest, now stands there wagging her tail, and wasting herself in efforts, mostly futile, but occasionally successful, to lick the end of his nose.  A period of quiet elapses, during which, for the sake of appearances, I turn over a page.  By-and-by, he speaks.

“Algy is your eldest brother, is not he?—­get away, you little beast!”—­ (the latter clause, in a tone of sudden exasperation, is addressed, not to me, but to Vick, and tells me that my pet dog’s endeavors have been crowned with a tardy prosperity.)

“Yes” (still reading sedulously).

“I thought so,” with a slight accent of satisfaction.

“Why?” cry I, again letting fall my volume, and yielding to a curiosity as irresistible as unwise; for he had meant me to ask, and would have been disobliged if I had not.