Again he laughs.
"I think I can guess."
"Her name is Zéphine," say I again, leaning over the boat-side and pulling my forefinger slowly to and fro through the warm brown water.
"I am well aware of that fact" (smiling).
How near the swans are drawing toward us! One, with his neck well thrown back, and his wings raised and ruffled, sailing along like a lovely snow-white ship; another, with less grace and more homeliness, standing on his head, with black webs paddling out behind.
"You were quite wrong on Sunday—quite," say I, speaking with sudden abruptness, and reddening.
"On Sunday!" (throwing his luminous dark eyes upward to the light clouds and faint blue of the August sky above us, as if to aid his recollection), "nothing more likely—but what about?"
"About—Roger," I answer, speaking with some difficulty ("and Mrs. Huntley," I was going to add, but some superstition hinders me from coupling their names even in a sentence).
"I dare say"—carelessly—"but what new light have you had thrown upon the matter?"
"I asked her," I say, looking him full in the face, with simple directness.