"For my own part," I said, "I shall drink to Winston Churchill. I find his habit of upsetting baskets a most commendable one."
We passed on unhurriedly to the cheese and cake courses. As our acquaintance mellowed, the almost nervous flippancy with which we had bridged over its earlier stages gradually died away. Quite unaffected, and gifted with a most refreshing sense of humour, the bronze-haired girl proved a delightful companion. She had evidently been brought up in an unusual sort of atmosphere, for she chatted away easily about art and books and people, without a trace of that embarrassing shyness of opinion which seems to be the hallmark of a conventionally educated girl.
On the ground that she was chiefly responsible for their present condition, she insisted on helping me wash up our scanty luncheon outfit.
"A plate is such a nice, clean thing by nature," she said, swishing it about in the water, "that I always think one ought to attend to it immediately after lunch. It must suffer horribly if you leave it lying about all covered with grease or jam. I think I shall start a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plates."
When we had packed away everything into the basket, she accepted one of those excellent Russian cigarettes which my friend M. Demidoff makes for me, and, arranging our cushions, we lay back luxuriously in our respective punts and talked aimlessly, volubly, and cheerfully about everything on God's earth. From where I was lying I could just see the tip of her nose, and I directed my conversation to that.
By three o'clock I had decided firmly that arrangements must be made which would involve the possibility of our meeting freely in the future; and when at four she sat up suddenly and said she must go home, I had arrived at a state in which I was quite unable to contemplate existence without her.
"We shall expect you to tea to-morrow, then," she said, "provided it is not too violent a break in the simple life. Of course, if Mr. George likes to bring his banjo—" Her eyes twinkled mischievously.
"No—no," I interrupted; "don't let us be morbid on a day like this."
She gave me her dear, cool, slender hand for a moment, and then, with the blessed Winston Churchill sitting up amiably in the stern of the punt, she pushed off down the stream.
It was not until she had vanished round the bend that I remembered I had never asked her name.