The stranger took off his hat.
“May I introduce myself?” he said. “I am Mr. Bertie Cochrane. Excuse me; I really can’t help laughing. Why, it’s just killing!”
Maud, already flushed with excitement and exercise, grew perfectly crimson.
“Oh, what am I to do?” she said. “It is too awful! How can you laugh? I can never forgive myself.”
She raised her eyes to his again, and saw there such genuine, kindly amusement that, in spite of her horror, she laughed too.
“Oh, don’t make me laugh,” she said. “It is too dreadful. Poaching! I thought it was you who were going to poach, and it’s been me!”
“Yes, it’s serious,” he said; “and it’s for me to make conditions.”
Maud had one moment’s fleeting terror that he was going to make an ass of himself, as she phrased it: ask to kiss her hand or do something dreadful. But he did not look that kind of donkey.
“Oh, my conditions are not difficult,” he said. “I only insist on your not cutting short your day’s fishing.”
“Don’t,” she said. “I couldn’t fish any more. Thank you very much, but I really think I couldn’t.”