At first only another pair of eyes, of dark grey eyes twinkling with a touch of merriment, though full at the same time of honest grat.i.tude. It was some time before I clearly understood that these eyes belonged to a face, and that face the fairest that ever looked on a summer day. First, as my gaze dropped before that vision of radiant beauty, it saw only an exquisite figure draped in a dress of some white and filmy stuff, and swathed around the shoulders with a downy shawl, white also, across which fell one ravishing lock of waving brown, shining golden in the kiss of the now drooping sun.
Then the gaze fell lower, lighted upon a little foot thrust slightly forward for steadiness on the bank"s verge, and there rested.
So we stood facing one another--Hero and Leander, save that Leander found the effects of his bath more discomposing than the poets give any hint of. So we stood, she smiling and I dripping, while the blackbird, robbed of the song"s ending, took up his own tale anew, and, being now on his mettle, tried a few variations. So, for all power I had of speech, might we have stood until to-day had not the voice repeated--
"How can I thank you?"
I looked up. Yes, she was beautiful, past all criticism--not tall, but in pose and figure queenly beyond words. Under the brim of her straw hat the waving hair fell loosely, but not so loosely as to hide the broad brow arching over lashes of deepest brown. Into the eyes I dared not look again, but the lips were full and curling with humour, the chin delicately poised over the most perfect of necks. In her right hand she held a carelessly-plucked creeper that strayed down the white of her dress and drooped over the high firm instep. And so my gaze dropped to earth again. Pity me. I had scarcely spoken to woman before, never to beauty. Tongue-tied and dripping I stood there, yet was half inclined to run away.
"And yet, why did you make yourself so wet? Have you no boat?
Is not that your boat lying there under the bank?" There was an amused tremor in the speech.
Somehow I felt absurdly guilty. She must have mistaken my glance, for she went on:--"Is it that you wish--?" and began to search in the pocket of her gown.
"No, no," I cried, "not that."
I had forgotten the raggedness of my clothes, now hideously emphasised by my bath. Of course she took me for a beggar. Why not?
I looked like one. But as the thought flashed upon me it brought unutterable humiliation. She must have divined something of the agony in my eyes, for a tiny hand was suddenly laid on my arm and the voice said--
"Please, forgive me; I was stupid, and am so sorry."
Forgive her? I looked up for an instant and now her lids drooped in their turn. There was a silence between us for a moment or two, broken only by the blackbird, by this time entangled in a maze of difficult variations. Presently she glanced up again, and the grey eyes were now chastely merry.
"But it was odd to swim when your boat was close at hand, was it not?"
I looked, faltered, met her honest glance, and we both broke out into shy laughter. A mad desire to seize the little hand that for a moment had rested on my arm caught hold of me.
"Yes, it was odd," I answered slowly and with difficulty; "but it seemed--the only thing to do at the time."
She laughed a low laugh again.
"Do you generally behave like that?"
"I don"t know."
There was a pause and then I added--
"You see, you took me by surprise."
"Where were you when I first called?" she asked.
"Lying in the gra.s.s close by."
"Then"--with a vivid blush--"you must have--"
"Heard you singing? Yes."
"Oh!"
Again there was a pause, and this time the blackbird executed an elaborate exercise with much delicacy and finish. The brown lashes drooped, the lovely eyes were bent on the gra.s.s, and the little hand swung the creeper nervously backward and forward.
"Why did you not warn me that I had an audience?"
"Because, in the first place, I was too late. When you began I was--"
"What?" she asked as I hesitated.
"Asleep."
"And I disturbed you. I am so sorry."
"I am not."
I was growing bolder as she became more embarra.s.sed. I looked down upon her now from my superior height, and my heart went out to worship the grace of G.o.d"s handiwork. With a touch of resentment she drew herself up, held out her hand, and said somewhat proudly--
"I thank you, sir, for this service."
I took the hand, but not the hint. It was an infinitesimal hand as it lay in my big brown one, and yet it stung my frame as with some delicious and electric shock. My heart beat wildly and my eyes remained fixed upon hers.
The colour on the fair face deepened a shade: the little chin was raised a full inch, and the voice became perceptibly icy.
"I must go, sir. I hope I have thanked you as far as I can, and--"
"And what?"
"Forgive me that I was about to offer you money."
The hat"s brim bent now, but under it I could see the honest eyes full of pain.
"Forgive you!" I cried. "Who am I to forgive you? You were right: I am no better than a beggar."
The red lips quivered and broke into a smile; a tiny dimple appeared, vanished and reappeared; the hat"s brim nodded again, and then the eyes sparkled into laughter--
"A st.u.r.dy beggar, at any rate."
It was the poorest little joke, but love is not exacting of wit.
Again we both laughed, but this time with more relief, and yet the embarra.s.sment that followed was greater.
"Must you go?" I asked as I bent down to pull the boat in.
"I really must," she answered shyly; and then as she pulled out a tiny watch at her waist--"Oh! I am late--so late. I shall keep mother waiting and make her lose the train. What shall I do?
Oh, pray, sir, be quick!"
A mad hope coursed through me; I pointed to the boat and said--
"I have made it so wet. If you are late, better let me row you.
Where are you going?"
"To Streatley; but I cannot--"