At about two yards' distance from her reclines her guest, full length, his fingers interlaced behind his head, looking longer, slighter than usual, as with eyes upturned he gazes in silence upon the far-off, never-changing blue showing through the net-work of the leaves above him.
"Are you quite used up?" asks Molly, in the slow, indifferent tone that belongs to heat, as the crisp, gay voice belongs to cold. "I never heard you silent for so long before. Do you think you are likely to die? Because—don't do it here, please: it would give me such a shock."
"I am far more afraid I shall live," replies her companion. "Oh, how I loathe the summer!"
"You are not so far gone as I feared: you can still use bad language. Now, tell me what sweet thought has held you in thrall so long."
"If I must confess it, I have been thinking of how untold a luxury at this moment would be an iced bath."
"'An iced bath'!" With as much contempt as she can summon. "How prosaic! And I quite flattered myself you were thinking of me." She says this as calmly as though she had supposed him thinking of his dinner.
Tedcastle's lips part in a faint smile, a mere glimmer,—a laugh is beyond him,—and he turns his head just so far round as will permit his eyes to fall full upon her face.
"I fancied such thoughts on my part tabooed," he says. "And besides, would they be of any advantage to you?"
"No material advantage, but they would have been only fair. I was thinking of you."
"Were you? Really!" With such overpowering interest as induces him to raise himself on his elbow, the better to see her. "You were thinking—that——"