“And yet, why did you make yourself so wet?  Have you no boat?  Is not that your boat lying there under the bank?” There was an amused tremor in the speech.

Somehow I felt absurdly guilty.  She must have mistaken my glance, for she went on:—­“Is it that you wish—?” and began to search in the pocket of her gown.

“No, no,” I cried, “not that.”

I had forgotten the raggedness of my clothes, now hideously emphasised by my bath.  Of course she took me for a beggar.  Why not?  I looked like one.  But as the thought flashed upon me it brought unutterable humiliation.  She must have divined something of the agony in my eyes, for a tiny hand was suddenly laid on my arm and the voice said—­

“Please, forgive me; I was stupid, and am so sorry.”

Forgive her?  I looked up for an instant and now her lids drooped in their turn.  There was a silence between us for a moment or two, broken only by the blackbird, by this time entangled in a maze of difficult variations.  Presently she glanced up again, and the grey eyes were now chastely merry.

“But it was odd to swim when your boat was close at hand, was it not?”

I looked, faltered, met her honest glance, and we both broke out into shy laughter.  A mad desire to seize the little hand that for a moment had rested on my arm caught hold of me.

“Yes, it was odd,” I answered slowly and with difficulty; “but it seemed—­the only thing to do at the time.”

She laughed a low laugh again.

“Do you generally behave like that?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a pause and then I added—­

“You see, you took me by surprise.”

“Where were you when I first called?” she asked.

“Lying in the grass close by.”

“Then”—­with a vivid blush—­“you must have—­”

“Heard you singing?  Yes.”

“Oh!”

Again there was a pause, and this time the blackbird executed an elaborate exercise with much delicacy and finish.  The brown lashes drooped, the lovely eyes were bent on the grass, and the little hand swung the creeper nervously backward and forward.

“Why did you not warn me that I had an audience?”

“Because, in the first place, I was too late.  When you began I was—­”

“What?” she asked as I hesitated.

“Asleep.”

“And I disturbed you.  I am so sorry.”

“I am not.”

I was growing bolder as she became more embarrassed.  I looked down upon her now from my superior height, and my heart went out to worship the grace of God’s handiwork.  With a touch of resentment she drew herself up, held out her hand, and said somewhat proudly—­

“I thank you, sir, for this service.”

I took the hand, but not the hint.  It was an infinitesimal hand as it lay in my big brown one, and yet it stung my frame as with some delicious and electric shock.  My heart beat wildly and my eyes remained fixed upon hers.