“I’m sorry.”
“So you ought to be. Things are bad enough as they are, but... How on earth did you come to be careering about alone in that punt?”
“I was waiting to see your sisters. I wandered down here, and thought I’d just sit in it for a rest, then I thought I could just paddle up and down. I managed quite well going up the stream; I got as far as the willow!” Even at that moment a faint note of pride crept into Darsie’s voice. “We grounded there, and I—I must have fallen asleep, I suppose, and that hateful old mill must needs choose the opportunity to begin working at that very moment... Just my luck!”
Ralph pursed his lips in eloquent comment.
“If it comes to that, I think you have had a fair amount of luck in another way! I heard the noise of the mill and came down to look on. If I hadn’t been there, you’d have been pretty considerably in Queer Street by this time. Nice thing it would have been for us to discover your drowned body in the millpond, and have had to tell your aunt!”
“I thought of that,” agreed Darsie meekly. “It was one of my dying thoughts. Don’t scold me, please, for I feel so shaky, and you wouldn’t like it if I cried. It was my own fault, and I got what I deserved. I wasn’t a bit frightened till I missed the jetty, but that one moment was like a hundred years. Did my yell sound very awful?”
“Pretty middling blood-curdling!” replied Ralph, smiling. “Good thing it did. Gave me a bit of a shock, I can tell you, to see the old punt dashing down to the gates, with you sitting huddled up in the bottom, with your hair hanging wild, and your face the colour of chalk. You looked like a young Medusa.”
“Sounds attractive, I must say! Medusa froze other people’s blood, not her own,” declared Darsie, tilting her chin with a little air of offence, at which her companion laughed triumphantly.
“Oh, you’re better; you’re coming round again all right! I was afraid you were going to faint. I don’t mind telling you that you were jolly plucky. Most girls would have started screaming miles before, but you held on like a Briton. How do the arms feel now? Rather rusty at the hinges, I expect. The stiffness will probably spread to the back by to-morrow, but it’ll come all right in time. It is a pretty good weight, that punt, and I had to pull for all I was worth... Don’t you think you’d better come up to the house and have some tea?”
“Yes, please. And you can change your clothes, too. I should feel so miserable if you caught cold.”