The culprit, who had just dragged himself from under a rather low-lying wet log, assumed an injured air.
"What can I have done, now?" he asked.
"It's not what you have done, but what you haven't done. You're so satisfied to be just comfortable, and——"
Frank regarded his earthy hands and soiled garments rather ruefully.
"Of course," he admitted, "I may have looked comfortable just now, rooting and pawing about in the leaves for that specimen, but I didn't really feel so."
"You know well enough what I mean," Constance persisted, though a little more pacifically. "You go with me willingly enough on such jaunts as this, where it doesn't mean any very special exertion, though sometimes I think you don't enjoy them very much. I know you would much rather drift about in a boat on the lake, or sit under a tree, and have me read to you. Do you know, I've never seen any one who cared so much for old tales of knights and their deeds of valor and strove so little to emulate them in real life."
Frank waited a little before replying. Then he said gently:
"I confess that I would rather listen to the tale of King Arthur in these woods, and as you read it, Conny, than to attempt deeds of valor on my own account. When I am listening to you and looking off through these wonderful woods I can realize and believe in it all, just as I did long ago, when I was a boy and read it for the first time. These are the very woods of romance, and I am expecting any day we shall come upon King Arthur's castle. When we do I shall join the Round Table and ride for you in the lists. Meantime I can dream it all to the sound of your voice, and when I see the people here climbing these mountains and boasting of such achievements I decide that my dream is better than their reality."
But Miss Deane's memory of the recent circumstances still rankled. She was not to be easily mollified.
"And while you dream, I am to find my reality as best I may," she said coldly.