“Won’t you?” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
Jimmy looked over his shoulder. Down the lower terrace was approaching the long form of his lordship. He walked with pensive jerkiness, not as one hurrying to a welcome tryst. As Jimmy looked up he vanished behind the great clump of laurels which stood on the lowest terrace. In another minute he would appear round them.
Gently, but with extreme despatch, Jimmy placed a hand on either side of Molly’s waist. The next moment he had swung her off her feet and lowered her carefully on to the cushions in the bow of the canoe.
Then, jumping in himself with a force that made the boat rock, he loosed the mooring-rope, seized the paddle and pushed off.
★ 19 ★
On the Lake
In making love, as in every other branch of life, consistency is the quality most to be aimed at. To hedge is fatal. A man must choose the line of action which he judges to be best suited to his temperament, and hold to it without deviation. If Lochinvar snatches the maiden up on to his saddlebow he must continue in that vein. He must not fancy that, having accomplished the feat, he can resume the episode on lines of devotional humility. Prehistoric man, who conducted his courtship with a club, never fell into the error of apologising when his bride complained of headache.
Jimmy did not apologise. The idea did not enter his mind. He was feeling prehistoric. His heart was beating fast and his mind was in a whirl, but the one definite thought that came to him during the first few seconds of the journey was that he ought to have done this earlier. This was the right way—pick her up and carry her off and leave uncles and fathers and butter-haired peers of the realm to look after themselves. This was the way—alone together in their own little world of water with nobody to interrupt and nobody to overhear. He should have done it before. He had wasted precious, golden time hanging about while futile men chatted to her of things that could not possibly be of interest. But he had done the right thing at last—he had got her. She must listen to him now. She could not help listening. They were the only inhabitants of this new world.
He looked back over his shoulder at the world they had left. The last of the Dreevers had rounded the clump of laurels, and was standing at the edge of the water, gazing perplexedly after the retreating canoe.
“These poets put a thing very neatly sometimes,” said Jimmy, reflectively, as he dug the paddle into the water. “The man who said ‘Distance lends enchantment to the view’, for instance. Dreever looks quite nice when you see him as far away as this, with a good strip of water in between.”