Once more he stopped rowing.
"I love you," he said, "with my whole heart and soul."
"Don't," said Gay, "don't spoil a day that, for all its ups and downs, has been a good day, a day that, on the whole, I've loved—and let's hurry, please, because I stood in the water and it was icy."
After that Pritchard rowed with heroic force and determination; he lacked, however, the knack which overlapping oar handles demand, and at every fifteenth or sixteenth stroke knocked a piece of "bark" from his knuckles.
Smarting with pain, he smiled gently at her from time to time.
"Will you guide me to-morrow?"
"To-morrow," she said, "there will be enough real guides to go around."
"You really are, aren't you?" he said.
"What?"
"Angry with me."