"No; but he will be. You'll find him looking for you when we get back, and ready to break my head for having taken you out."
"Do you think so?" Her voice was coldly contemptuous, and Feathers hurriedly tried another subject.
"The thing to do in a punt is to go to sleep. Have you ever slept in a punt in a backwater like this? No? Then you've missed half the joys of life. Come out on the bank a minute and let me arrange those cushions."
He held his hand to her, but she avoided it, and stood watching silently as he made a great business of plumping up the cushions and spreading his coat for her to lie on.
"There you are! Isn't that great? Mind, you'll upset the whole show!"
He tightened the moorings a little and looked down at her with a strained smile.
Marie had gone back to the punt and dragged a cushion beneath her dark head.
174 Feathers sat down on the grass, his back to a tree, and produced a pipe which he gravely lit.
"I've had this pipe four years," he said. "Chris says it's a disgrace to civilization, but I like it! You don't mind if I smoke?"
"No, please do."