"Am I?"
"Very."
She really seemed vexed and I asked her pardon.
"But you oughtn't to mention theft to a thief," I added. "I'm trying to steal your heart, you know——"
"Michael, you are insufferable!" she exclaimed with a movement of impatience that almost sent us into the pool. In fact she clutched me and held fast while I struggled to recover our balance. And after I had reëstablished our equilibrium I was low enough, mean enough, to pretend we were still in danger, so heavenly sweet it was to me to feel her little hands close clinging.
Whether or not she discovered my perfidy I was not certain, for presently she released her grasp and sat very still and flushed beside me, her eyes fixed on the frivolous brook.
Which drove me uneasily toward conversation—the first refuge of the guilty.
"And so," said I, in a casual and pleasant voice, "you are really a descendant of those ancient Venetians who once occupied Naxos."
"I don't wish to continue the subject," she said.
Snubbed again I relapsed into mournful inertia. Which presently she inspected sideways. And after a while she laughed.