“It was rather silly,” she answered. “And I ought to have run away when I saw your canoe coming. But it was so unexpected and sudden, and I was bored and――and I wondered what you would look like when I told you I was a water-nymph!” She laughed softly. “Only,” she went on in a moment, with grievance in her tones, “you didn’t look at all surprised! I might just as well have said ‘I am Mary Smith’ or――or ‘Laura Devereux!’” (“Aha!” quoth Ethan to himself, “I am learning.”) “You were very disappointing,” she concluded severely. “I am sorry, really. I realize now that I should have displayed astonishment and awe. Perhaps if you had said you were Laura――Laura Devereux, was it?――I would have really shown some emotion.” “Why?” she questioned. “Well, don’t you think――Laura, now, is――I’m afraid I can’t just explain.” He was watching her intently. She was studying her clasped hands. “I suppose what I meant was that Laura is such an attractive name, so――so musical, so melodious! And then coupled with Devereux it is even――even――er――more so!” “Is it?” She didn’t look at him and her tone was almost icy. (“I fancy that’ll hold you for awhile,” he said to himself. “My boy, you’re inclined to be a little too fresh; cut it out!”) “I never thought Laura especially melodious,” she said. “Perhaps you are prejudiced,” he suggested amiably. “Why should I be?” she asked, observing him calmly. He hesitated and paid much attention to his cigarette. “Oh, no reason at all, I suppose,” he answered finally. He looked up in time to surprise a little mocking smile in her eyes. Nonsense! He’d show her that she couldn’t bluff him down like that! “To be honest,” he continued, “what I meant was that some folks take a dislike to their own names; in which case they are scarcely impartial judges.” He looked across at her challengingly. She returned the look serenely. “So you think that is my name?” she asked. “Isn’t it?” “I don’t see why you should think so,” she parried. “I might have found it in a novel. I’m sure it sounds like a name out of a novel.” “But you haven’t denied it,” he insisted. “I don’t intend to,” she replied, the little tantalizing smile quivering again at the corners of her mouth. “Besides, I have already told you that my name is Clytie.” He tossed the remains of his cigarette toward where one of the swans was paddling about. The long neck writhed snake-like and the bill disappeared under the water. Then with an insulted air and an angry bob of the tail, the swan turned her back on Ethan and sailed hurriedly back to her family. “I understand,” he said. “I will try not to forget hereafter that this is Arcadia, that you are Clytie and that I am Vertumnus.”