It would not be high water for half an hour, and the tide was still running up strongly. Gerald put the boat's head up stream, and pulled gently along towards Twickenham. He blessed the happy fortune that, for one delicious hour, had given him Eleanor all to himself. But now that the opportunity was his, what should he talk to her about? He felt that he ought to be at once witty and tender; that now, if ever, he ought to rise above the commonplace level of everyday conversation. He felt all this, and yet he felt, at the same time, that he had nothing to say. If he might only have opened the floodgates of his heart, then, indeed, there would have been no lack of words--no necessity to hunt here and there in his brain for something to talk about. It is true that he might have begun about the weather, or some other equally simple topic; but, then, any nincompoop could have done that, and to-day he wanted so particularly to shine in the eyes of his goddess! But before long it became quite evident that he was not to shine to-day. He must rest contentedly on the level of the nincompoops, and trust to his good fortune that Miss Lloyd would not find out that he was a bigger donkey than the rest of the gentlemen who were in the habit of laying themselves out to fascinate her. But Miss Lloyd herself seemed to have very little to say this afternoon. It seemed pleasure enough just then to sit quietly in the sweet sunshine and dip her ungloved hand now and again in the cool ripples of the tide. "Have you ever been as far up the Thames as this before?" asked Gerald at last, in sheer desperation. "I was never on the Thames in a small boat before to-day," answered Eleanor. "There are some lovely nooks on it--so thoroughly English, you know: altogether unlike anything of the kind that you can see anywhere else." "I have been so little abroad lately that I am hardly competent to judge what kind of scenery is thoroughly English, or what is not." Another awkward silence. "What a goose he must think me! It seems so stupid not to be able to talk except in answer to a question," said Eleanor, to herself. "Why do I feel so different when I am with _him_ from what I do when I'm with anyone else? I never felt like this when I was alone with Captain Dayrell. If Cora had come with us we should have been lively enough." And yet, in her heart, how glad she was that Cora had not come! "Whether this scenery is English or not, it is very beautiful," said Eleanor, at last, with a desperate resolve to break the spell that was weaving itself more strongly around them with every moment. "One can see where spring's delicate brush has been at work here and there among the trees, rubbing-in the first faint tints of green. How lovely it is!" "If this sunshine would only last, and the tide not tire of running up," said Gerald, "I feel that I could go on like this for a week and not feel weary."