"I wonder if you would tell me something?" she said almost diffidently.
"If it lies in my power," he answered courteously.
"You may think it rude," she suggested, with a most unusual attack of timidity. It had been her habit all her life to command rather than to request. But somehow the very courtesy with which this man treated her made her uncertain of herself.
"I shall not think anything so—impossible," he assured her gently, and again she saw his smile.
"Well," she said, looking up at him intently, "will you—please—let me into your secret? I promise I won't tell. But do tell me who you are!"
There followed a silence, during which the man leaned a little on his pole, gazing downwards while he kept the punt motionless. The water babbled round them with a tinkling murmur that was like the laughter of fairy voices. They had passed beyond the region of house-boats and bungalows, and the night was very still.
At last the man spoke, and the girl gave a queer little motion of relief.
"I should like to tell you everything there is to know about me," he said in his careful, foreign English. "But—will you forgive me?—I do not feel myself able to do so—yet. Some day I will answer your question gladly—I hope some day soon—if you are kind enough to continue to extend to me your interest and your friendship."
He looked down into Hilary's uplifted face with a queer wistfulness that struck unexpectedly straight to her heart. She felt suddenly that this man's past contained something of loss and disappointment of which he could not lightly speak to a mere casual acquaintance.
With the quickness of impulse characteristic of her, she smiled sympathetic comprehension.