beauty of the scene is too obvious for even
you to miss."

"May I express an opinion before you depart?"

"If it is not a very long or very dissenting opinion."

"Then it's this: two normal and wholesome people--man and a woman, can
_not_ meet, either conventionally or unconventionally, without
expressing some atom of interest in one another as individuals. I say
two--perfectly--normal--people--"

"But it has just happened!" she insisted, preparing to rise.

"No, it has not happened."

"Really. You speak for yourself of course--"

"Yes, I do. I _am_ interested; I'd be stupid if I were not. Besides, I
understand conventions as well as you do--"

"You don't observe them--"

"I don't worship them!"

She said coolly: "Women should be ritualists. It is safer."

"It is not necessary in this case. I haven't the slightest hope of
making this incident a foundation for another; I haven't the least idea
that I shall ever see you again. But for me to pretend an imbecile
indifference to you or to the situation would be a more absurd example
of self-consciousness than even you have charged me with."

Wrath and surprise in her turn widened her eyes; he held up his hand:
"One moment; I have not finished. May I go on?"

And, as she said nothing, he resumed: "During the few minutes we have
been accidentally thrown together, I have not seen a quiver of human
humour in you. _There_ is the self-consciousness--the absorbed
preoccupation with appearances."

"What is there humourous in the situation?" she demanded, very pink.

"Good Lord! What is there humourous in any situation if you don't make
it so?"

"I am not a humourist," she said.

She sat in the bows, one closed hand propping her chin; and sometimes
her clear eyes, harboring lightning, wandered toward him, sometimes
toward the shore.

"Suppose you continue to row," she said at last. "I'm doing you the
honour of thinking about what you've said."

He resumed the oars, still sitting facing her, and pushed the boat
slowly forward; and, as they continued their progress in silence, her
brooding glance wavered, at intervals, between him and the coast.

"Haven't you _any_ normal human curiosity concerning me?" he asked so
boyishly that, for a second, again from her eyes, two gay little demons
seemed to peer out and laugh at him.

But her lips were expressionless, and she only said: "I have no
curiosity. Is that criminally abnormal?"

"Yes; if it is true. Is it?"