"I"—she turned pink with annoyance—"I suppose I was a trifle tired—if you insist. I realised that I had lost my bearings; that was all. Then I heard a ship's bell.... Then the mist lifted and I saw you—but I've explained all that before. Look at that exasperating fog!"
Vexation silenced her; she sat restless for a few seconds, then:
"What do you think I had better do?"
"I think you had better try to endure me for a few minutes longer. I'm safer than the fog."
But his amusement left her unresponsive, plainly occupied with her own ideas.
Again the tent of vapour stretched its magic folds above the boat and around it; again the shoreward shapes faded to phantoms and disappeared.
He spoke again once or twice, but her brief replies did not encourage him. At first, he concluded that her inattention and indifference must be due to self-consciousness; then, slightly annoyed, he decided they were not. And, very gradually, he began to realise that the unconventional, always so attractive to the casual young man, did not interest her at all, even enough to be aware of it or of him.
This cool unconsciousness of self, of him, of a situation which to any wholesome masculine mind contained the germs of humour, romance, and all sorts of amusing possibilities, began to be a little irksome to him. And still her aloofness amused him, too.
"Do you know of any decorous reason why we should not talk to each other occasionally during this fog?" he asked.
She turned her head, considered him inattentively, then turned it away again.