“It will be cooler by the river,” he said, moving on without waiting for a possible protest.  None came:  it seemed easier, for the moment, to let herself be led without any conventional feint of resistance.  And besides, there was nothing wrong about this—­the wrong would have been in sitting up there in the glare, pretending to listen to her husband, a dutiful wife among her kind. . . .

The path descended, as both knew, to the chosen, the inimitable spot of Wentworth:  that fugitive curve of the river, where, before hurrying on to glut the brutal industries of South Wentworth and Smedden, it simulated for a few hundred yards the leisurely pace of an ancient university stream, with willows on its banks and a stretch of turf extending from the grounds of Hamblin Hall to the boat houses at the farther bend.  Here too were benches, beneath the willows, and so close to the river that the voice of its gliding softened and filled out the reverberating silence between Margaret and her companion, and made her feel that she knew why he had brought her there.

“Do you feel better?” he asked gently as he sat down beside her.

“Oh, yes.  I only needed a little air.”

“I’m so glad you did.  Of course the speeches were tremendously interesting—­but I prefer this.  What a good night!”

“Yes.”

There was a pause, which now, after all, the soothing accompaniment of the river seemed hardly sufficient to fill.

“I wonder what time it is.  I ought to be going home,” Margaret began at length.

“Oh, it’s not late.  They’ll be at it for hours in there—­yet.”

She made a faint inarticulate sound.  She wanted to say:  “No—­Robert’s speech was to be the last—­” but she could not bring herself to pronounce Ransom’s name, and at the moment no other way of refuting her companion’s statement occurred to her.

The young man leaned back luxuriously, reassured by her silence.

“You see it’s my last chance—­and I want to make the most of it.”

“Your last chance?” How stupid of her to repeat his words on that cooing note of interrogation!  It was just such a lead as the Brant girl might have given him.

“To be with you—­like this.  I haven’t had so many.  And there’s less than a week left.”

She attempted to laugh.  “Perhaps it will sound longer if you call it five days.”

The flatness of that, again!  And she knew there were people who called her intelligent.  Fortunately he did not seem to notice it; but her laugh continued to sound in her own ears—­the coquettish chirp of middle age!  She decided that if he spoke again—­if he said anything—­she would make no farther effort at evasion:  she would take it directly, seriously, frankly—­she would not be doubly disloyal.

“Besides,” he continued, throwing his arm along the back of the bench, and turning toward her so that his face was like a dusky bas-relief with a silver rim—­“besides, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”