"I'm sorry, Kenny. I'm—tired. And just for a minute I wasn't listening. You know how it is. You hear an echo in your mind a long while after and answer in a panic." She brushed her cheek against his sleeve with a remorseful gesture of appeal. His arm went round her.
"There!" he said with a sigh of relief. "That's better. I'm lonesome when we're not in tune."
"And the story?"
Kenny told of a fairy face that Finn had seen in a lake among the heather.
"Leaf-brown eyes had the nymph, I take it, and satin-cream skin with a rose showin' through and allurin' lashes maybe dipped in the ink-pots of the fairies."
"What," said Joan from the shelter of his arm, "is a blarney stone?"
"A substitute for lips!" said Kenny instantly and kissed her.
"And Finn?"
"Plunged into the waters of the lake, he did, as any son of Erin would—and found the maid."
But Joan's eyes were absently fixed upon the road again and Kenny abandoned his legend with a sigh until he bethought himself to use its climax in reproach.