You'd have got a
wetting--and so would your unfortunate rescuer. That's all. Still, I'm just
as glad I saw what was going to happen. I prefer to keep a dry skin
myself."
"Oh! Then you would have jumped in after me?" asked Ann, with interest.
He sat down in the stern of the boat, his arm on the tiller, and regarded
her contemplatively.
"I suppose so. A man has no choice when a woman chooses to go monkeying
about in a boat and gets herself into difficulties."
"'Monkeying about in a boat!'" repeated Ann indignantly. "I suppose you'll
say next that I rammed my own boat and sank it!"
"You certainly put yourself in the way of danger," he retorted. "Who in the
name of Heaven allowed you to go out on the lake alone on a fete night like
this? Isn't there any one to look after you?"
"I look after myself," she replied shortly. "I'm not a child."
He laughed.
"Not much more, surely. How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?"
"Add four," said Ann, "and you'll be nearer it."
"So much?" He fell silent. There had been genuine surprise in his voice.
Perhaps he was recalling her as he had seen her at the Kursaal--boyishly
slender, her eager, pointed face alight with gay enthusiasm and amusement.
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