He paused abruptly, and stared hard.
He started. It was a woman! A woman sitting on the sill of the open window! Of all the——. Well, if that wasn’t luck he felt he would like to know what was. He wondered which of the sisters it was—Kate or Helen. He was confident it was one of them. He would soon find out.
With a tumultuously beating heart he promptly diverged from his course, and set off straight for the house. It was always his way to act on impulse. Rarely did he give things a second thought where his inclinations were concerned.
As he drew near, Kate Seton’s deep voice greeted him. Its tone was velvety in its richness, nor was there the least inflection of astonishment in its tone.
“That you, Mr. Bryant?” she said, without stirring from her attitude of luxurious enjoyment.
Bill came up hurriedly.
“I s’pose it is,” he said with a laugh. “All that the river hasn’t washed away. Say,” he went on, with amiable inconsequence, “there’s just two things puzzling my fool head, Miss Seton: Why Fate takes a particular delight in handing me so many pleasant moments with so many unpleasant kicks? And what wild streak of good luck finds you sitting in the moonlight this hour of the night? It surely was a scurvy trick of Fate dumping me in the creek, when there’s a bridge to walk over, just to land me right here, where you’re handing up fancy dreams to a very chilly but beautiful moon. Guess I’m kind of spoiling the picture for you though. I may be some picture to look at, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth framing—would you?”
Kate smiled up at him. His dripping condition was obvious enough. Nor could she help her amusement. Knowing something of the man, he became doubly grotesque in her eyes.
“It needs courage to put things nicely under such adverse conditions,” she said, with a laugh. “And I like courage.” Then she went on in her easy, pleasant way: “It was the storm fetched me out of bed. I never can resist a storm. So I just had to dress and come right out here to watch it. Why are you around, anyway? Tell me about—about the river, and how you got into it.”
Bill laughed joyously.