"Shall I row you about in the flat-boat, Louis?"
"I'll do the paddling—"
"Not by any means. I like to row, if you please. I have cold cream and a pair of gloves, so that I shall acquire no blisters."
They walked together out to the road and along it, she holding to her skirts and his arm, until the star-lit pond came into view.
Afloat in the ancient, weedy craft he watched her slender strength mastering the clumsy oars—watched her, idly charmed with her beauty and the quaint, childish pleasure that she took in manoeuvring among the shoreward lily pads and stumps till clear water was reached and the little misty wavelets came slap! slap! against the bow.
"If you were Querida you'd sing in an exceedingly agreeable tenor," she observed.
"Not being Querida, and labouring further under the disadvantage of a barytone, I won't," he said.
"Please, Louis."
"Oh, very well—if you feel as romantic as that." And he began to sing:
"My wife's gone to the country,
Hurrah! Hurrah!"