"No, you mightn't. You've liked to come here and talk to me."
"Because I like books. And you talk like a book."
"That was before I fell in love. I didn't talk like a book just now."
"When you took my hand! More like a book than ever. I've read it all—lots of times."
"Oh, Eil—Miss O'Keeffe—you are very cruel."
Eileen smiled. "I am not—I'm very kind—I threw you back into the water."
He gasped, as though out of it again. "Do you mean I am not grown enough?"
She flushed and improvised on his theme. "Not quite that. You hooked yourself, as you threatened to do. But suppose I had landed you. You know the next step—hot water. What a lot you would have got into, too!"
"You are thinking of my mother?"
"Yes, raising Cain, I think you said once. Oh, dear, swim about and be thankful." And a vision of Mrs. Maper's amazement twitched the corners of her lips and made them more enchanting.