An unfortunate movement of his elbow jerked his straw hat which was lying by him into the Thames: it caught and pirouetted for a moment on am eddy of water, and then hurried gladsomely down-stream.
"But your hat?" said Joyce in a strangled whisper, as if, being forbidden to move, she must not speak.
"I'm afraid I've already said what I had to say about that," said Charles. "Just one second."
He worked eagerly and intensely with concentrated vision and effort of its realization for half a minute. Then again he used that forbidden receptacle for paint-brushes, and dragged off the excessive moisture from his wash.
"Now I'll get it while that dries," he said.
He picked up the punt-pole and ran down the edge of the bank to recapture his hat. But it had floated out into mid-stream and his pursuit was fruitless.
"And it looked quite new," said Joyce reproachfully, on his return. "I'm afraid you are extravagant."
"Just the other way round. It would have been false economy to have saved my hat—price half-a-crown, and have risked losing the—the sight I got of you just for that minute while my hat started voyaging. But now," he said, gleefully washing out his brushes—"now that I've got you, let the great river take it to the main."
He made the quotation simply in the bubble of high spirits, not thinking of the context, nor of the concluding and following line, "No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield." But instantaneously the sequel occurred to him—for the words were set to a tune which he very imperfectly sang with his light tenor, and accompanied on his banjo.
"You talk of too many things in one breath, Mr. Lathom," said Joyce. "You said if the weather broke you would catch cold here, so of course you must go to the inn in the village, if it rains. Men have no sense: I believe you would stick on here, while you get congestion and inflammation and pneumonia. Then you asked me if I painted, and I may tell you I don't. I used to try: if I have any sketches left the sight of them would convince you of the truth of what I say."