Unfortunately I only got as far as "Oh, thank you——" And then my fingers must have fumbled the tap on or something. Anyhow, a great spray of water immediately poured forth from out of the hose through the roses and the trellis, right on to the fair head and the face of the young man next door.
"Oh!" I cried, scarlet with embarrassment. "I beg your pardon——"
"It's quite all right, thanks," he said. "Most refreshing!"
Here I realised that I was still giving him a shower-bath all the time.
Then we both laughed heartily together. It was the first good laugh I'd had for months! And then I trained the hose off him at last and on to our border, while the young man, watching me from over the palings, said quickly:
"I've been wanting to talk to you, do you know? I've been wanting to ask——"
Well, I suppose I shall never know now, what he wanted to ask. For that was the moment when there broke upon the peaceful evening air the sound of a voice from the back window of our drawing-room, calling in outraged accents:
"Beatrice! Bee—atrice!"
Immediately all the laughter went out of me.
"Y—yes, Aunt Anastasia," I called back. In my agitation I dropped the end of the hose on to the ground, where it began irrigating the turf and my four-and-elevenpenny shoes at the same time.