“Sufficiently,” she said, disgusted.  “But I suppose this sort of thing is nothing unusual for you.”

“I’ve hooked one or two people,” he admitted, reddening.  “I suppose you won’t bother to forgive me, but I’m terribly sorry.  If you’ll let me put a little mud on it——­”

She disdained to reply.  He hovered about her, clumsily solicitous, and whichever way she turned, he managed to get underfoot, until, thoroughly vexed, she stood stock-still and opened her arms with a hopeless gesture: 

“What are you trying to do, Delancy?  Do you want to embrace me?  I wish you wouldn’t leap about me like a great Dane puppy!”

The red surged up into his face anew: 

“I beg your pardon,” he said.  “I’m very sorry.”

She looked at him curiously:  “I beg yours—­you big, silly boy.  Don’t blush at me.  Great Danes are exceedingly desirable property, you know....  Did you wish to be forgiven for anything?  What on earth are you doing with that horrid fistful of muck?”

“I only want to put some mud on that wound, if you’ll let me.  It’s good for hornet stings——­”

She laughed and backed away:  “Do you believe there is any virtue in mud, Delancy?—­good, deep mire—­when one is bruised and sore and lonely and desperate?  Oh, don’t try to understand—­what a funny, confused, stupid way you have of looking at me!  I remember you used to look at me that way sometimes—­oh, long ago—­before I was married, I think.”

The heavy colour which surged so readily to his temples began to amuse her; she leaned back against the bridge rail and contemplated him with smiling disdain.

“Do you know,” she said, “years ago, I had a slight, healthy suspicion that you were on the verge of falling in love with me.”

He tried to smile, but the colour died out in his face.

“Yes, I was on the verge,” he contrived to answer.

“Why didn’t you fall over?”

“I suppose it was because you married Jack Dysart,” he said simply.

“Was that all?”

“All?” He thought he perceived the jest, and managed to laugh again.

“Really, I am perfectly serious,” repeated Rosalie.  “Was that all that prevented you from falling in love with me—­because I was married?”

“I think so,” he said.  “Wasn’t it reason enough?”

“I didn’t know it was enough for a man.  I don’t believe I know exactly how men consider such matters....  You’ve managed to hook that fly into my gown again!  And now you’ve torn the skirt hopelessly!  What a devastating sort of creature you are, Delancy!  You used to step on my slippers at dancing school, and, oh, Heaven! how I hated you....  Where are you going?” for he had begun to walk away, reeling in his wet line as he moved, his grave, highly coloured face lowered, troubled eyes intent on what he was doing.

When she spoke, he halted and raised his head, and she saw the muscles flexed under the bronze skin of the jaw—­saw the lines of pain appear where his mouth tightened.  All of the clumsy boy in him had vanished; she had never troubled herself to look at him very closely, and it surprised her to see how worn his face really was under the eyes and cheek-bones—­really surprised her that there was much of dignity, even of a certain nobility, in his quiet gaze.