And so I wish you might
recognise in our encounter something amusing, humourous"--he looked
cautiously at her--"even mildly romantic--ah--enough to--to--"

"To what?"

"Why--to say--to do something characteristically--ah--"

"What?"

"--Human!" he ventured--quite prepared to see her rise wrathfully and go
overboard.

Instead she remained motionless, those clear, disconcerting eyes fixed
steadily on him. Once or twice he thought that her upper lip quivered;
that some delicate demon of laughter was trying to look out at him under
the lashes; but not a lid twitched; the vivid lips rested gravely upon
each other. After a silence she said:

"What is it, _human_, that you expect me to do? Flirt with you?"

"Good Lord, no!" he said, stampeded.

She was now paying him the compliment of her full attention; he felt the
dubious flattery, although it slightly scared him.

"Why is it," she asked, "that a man is eternally occupied in thinking
about the effect he produces on woman--whether or not he knows her--that
seems to make no difference at all? Why is it?"

He turned redder; she sat curled up, nursing both ankles, and
contemplating him with impersonal and searching curiosity.

"Tell me," she said; "is there any earthly reason why you and I should
be interested in each other--enough, I mean, to make any effort toward
civility beyond the bounds of ordinary convention?"

He did not answer.

"Because," she added, "if there is not, any such effort on your part
borders rather closely on the offensive. And I am quite sure you do not
intend that."

He was indignant now, but utterly incapable of retort.

"Is there anything romantic in it because a chance swimmer rests a few
moments in somebody's boat?" she asked. "Is that chance swimmer
superhuman or inhuman or ultra-human because she is not consciously,
and simperingly, preoccupied with the fact that there happens to be a
man in her vicinity?"

"Good heavens!" he broke out, "do you think I'm that sort of noodle--"

"But I _don't_ think about you at all," she interrupted; "there is not a
thought that I have which concerns you as an individual. My homily is
delivered in the abstract. Can't you--in the abstract--understand
_that_?--even if you are a bit doubtful concerning the seven deadly
conventions?"

He rested on his oars, tingling all over with wrath and surprise.

"And now," she said quietly, "I think it time to go. The sun is almost
shining, you see, and the