"Don't!" he cried hastily. "I say, don't wade!"
Her superb composure claimed his admiration. Absolutely ignorant though she had been of his proximity, the voice from out of the skies evidently alarmed her not at all. Still bending over the lifted foot, she turned her head slowly and looked up; and "Oh!" said a small voice tinged with relief. And coolly knotting the laces again, she sat up. "I didn't hear you, you know."
"Nor I see you," Maitland supplemented unblushingly, "until a moment ago. I—er—can I be of assistance?"
"Can't you?"
"Idiot!" said Maitland severely, both to and of himself. Aloud: "I think I can."
"I hope so,"—doubtfully. "It's very unfortunate. I … was running rather fast, I suppose, and didn't see the slope until too late. Now," opening her hands in a gesture ingenuously charming with its suggestion of helplessness and dependence, "I don't know what can be the matter with the machine."
"I'm coming down," announced Maitland briefly. "Wait."
"Thank you, I shall."
She laughed, and Maitland could have blushed for his inanity; happily he had action to cloak his embarrassment. In a twinkling he was at the water's edge, pausing there to listen, with admirable docility, to her plaintive objection: "But you'll get wet and—and ruin your things. I can't ask that of you."
He chuckled, by way of reply, slapping gallantly into the shallows and courageously wading out to the side of the car. Whereupon he was advised in tones of fluttered indignation: