“Yes—I only remembered it a few hours ago. Strange that such a treat should have been provided for me. Yes, I am very idle. A year and a half ago my only brother died. He had been very successful in life, and he left me what I regard as a fortune, though it was only a small part of what he had.”
The listener’s heart throbbed. Without intending it, she pulled the tiller so that the boat began to turn towards land.
“The left hand a little,” said Widdowson, smiling correctly. “That’s right. Many days I don’t leave home. I am fond of reading, and now I make up for all the time lost in years gone by. Do you care for books?”
“I never read very much, and I feel very ignorant.”
“But that is only for want of opportunity, I’m sure.”
He glanced at the brown-paper parcel. Acting on an impulse which perturbed her, Monica began to slip off the loosely-tied string, and to unfold the paper.
“I thought it was a book!” exclaimed Widdowson merrily, when she had revealed a part of her present.
“When you told me your name,” said Monica, “I ought perhaps to have told you mine. It’s written here. My sisters gave me this to-day.”
She offered the little volume. He took it as though it were something fragile, and—the sculls fixed under his elbows—turned to the fly-leaf.
“What? It is your birthday?”