Helena realized that she had touched one. She bent forward presently, and laid her own hand on one of the hands that were handling the sculls.
"Dear Peter!"
He bent impetuously, and kissed the hand before she could withdraw it.
"Don't you play with me, Helena," he said passionately. "I'm not a child, though I look it … Now, then, let's have it out."
They had reached the middle of the pond, and were drifting across a moonlit pathway, on either side of which lay the shadow of deep woods, now impenetrably dark. The star in Helena's hair glittered in the light, and the face beneath it, robbed of its daylight colour, had become a study in black and white, subtler and more lovely than the real Helena.
"Why did you do it, Helena?" said Peter suddenly.
"Do what?"
"Why did you behave to me as you did, at the Arts Ball? Why did you cut me, not once—but twice—three times—for that beast Donald?"
Helena laughed.
"Now you're beginning!" she said, as she lazily trailed her hand in the water. "It's really comic!"