"No: I should like to tell you all about—"
"All about yourself. My dear young man, there is nothing I enjoy more; the passion for confidences is my only vice. It was really to indulge that that I asked you to come on the river with me."
"I thought," said Temple as they reached the landing stage, "that perhaps you had asked me to console me for not seeing your niece this morning."
"Thank you kindly," Miss Desmond stepped lightly into the boat. "I rather like compliments, especially when you're solidly built—like myself. Oh, yes, I'll steer; pull hard, bow, she's got no way on her yet, and the stream's strong just here under the bridge. I gather that you've been proposing to my niece."
"I didn't mean to," said Temple, pulling a racing stroke in his agitation.
"Gently, gently! The Diamond Sculls aren't at stake. She led you on, you mean?"
He rested on his oars a moment and laughed.
"What is there about you that makes me feel that I've known you all my life?"
"Possibly it's my enormous age. Or it may be that I nursed you when you were a baby. I have nursed one or two in my time, though I mayn't look it.—So Betty entrapped you into a proposal?"
"Are you trying to make me angry? It's a dangerous river. Can you swim."