He stopped.

“You don’t believe me?” he said abruptly.

Her lip curled a little.

“Do you really expect to be believed?” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said; “I thought it was the usual thing to do between friends.”

“I was not aware—­” began Molly.

He broke in with a most disarming smile.

“Oh, please,” he said.  “I don’t deserve that—­anyhow.  I’m awfully sorry about the skirt.  I hope you’ll let me bear the cost of the damage.  I’ve got into hot water all round.  Nobody will believe I’m seriously sorry, though it’s a fact for all that.  Don’t be hard on me, Molly, I say!”

There was a note of genuine pleading in the last words that induced her to relent a little.

“Oh, well, I’ll forgive you for the skirt,” she said.  “I suppose boys can’t help being mischievous, though you are nearly old enough to know better.”

She looked at him as she said it.  His face was comically penitent.  Somehow she could not quarrel with the lurking smile in his merry eyes.  He was certainly a boy.  He would never be anything else.  But Molly did not realise this, and she was still too young herself to have appreciated the gift of perpetual youth had she been aware of its existence.

“That’s right!” said Charlie cheerily.  “And perhaps”—­he spoke cautiously, with a half-deprecatory glance at her bright face—­“perhaps—­in time, you know—­you will be able to forgive me for something else as well.”

“I think the less we say about that the better,” remarked Molly, tilting her chin a little.

“All right!” said Charlie equably.  “Only, you know”—­his voice was suddenly grave—­“I was—­and am—­in earnest.”

Molly laughed.

“So far as in you lies, I suppose?” she said indifferently.  “I wonder if you ever really did anything worth doing in your life, Mr. Cleveland.”

“I wish you would call me Charlie!” he said impulsively.  “Yes.  I proposed to you last night.  Wasn’t that worth doing?”

She drew her brows together in a quick frown, but she made no reply.  Fisher was drifting towards them.  She turned deliberately, her head very high, and strolled to meet him.

Charlie glanced over his shoulder, stood a moment irresolute, then walked away more soberly than usual towards the bridge, where he was a constant and welcome visitor.

V

“There are plenty of fine chaps in the world who aren’t to be recognised as such at first sight,” drawled Bertie Richmond to his young cousin, Molly Erle, who was sitting with her feet on the fender on a very cold winter evening.

“I’m sure of that,” said Mrs. Richmond from the other side of the fire, with a tender glance at her husband’s loosely knit figure.  “I never thought there was an inch of heroism in you, Bertie darling, till that day when we went punting and we got upset.  How brave you were!  I’ve never forgotten it.  It was the beginning of everything.”