‘I think, considering the general tenor of their conduct, every proper-minded young lady ought to feel very glad we have got rid of them,’ said Gerald, throwing away the end of his cigar, which fizzed and sparkled and made a little red spot in the moonlit water, a light that was of the earth earthy amidst all that heavenly radiance. ‘How would you like to be run away with by a wicked old man disguised as a bull; or to have the earth open as you were gathering daffodils, and a still wickeder old gentleman leap out of his chariot to carry you off to Tartarus?’ ‘How dare you call Zeus old?’ cried Daphne indignantly. ‘The gods were for ever young.’ ‘Well, he was a family man at any rate, and ought to have known better than to go masquerading about the plains and valleys when he ought to have been sitting in state on Olympus,’ answered Gerald. ‘Now such a river on such a night as this puts me in mind of old German legends rather than of Greek gods and goddesses. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if Miss Daphne Lawford were suddenly to develop into an Undine, and take a header into the river, cleaving the silvery tide, and going down to depths beyond any earthly fathom-line, leaving Turchill and me aghast in the boat.’ ‘I have often envied Undine,’ answered Daphne; ‘I love the river so dearly that years ago I used really to fancy that there must be a bright world underneath it, where there are gnomes and fairies, and where one might be happy for ever. Even now, though I have left off believing in fairies, I cannot help thinking that there is profound peace at the bottom of this quiet river.’ ‘If you were to go down experimentally in a diving-bell, I’m afraid you’d find only profound mud,’ said Gerald, with his cynical laugh. Since his return from Canada he had treated Daphne much in the old fashion—as if she were a child upon whose foolishness his wisdom looked down from an ineffable height. There was nothing in manner, word, or look to show that he remembered that one fatal moment of self-betrayal, when his passionate heart gave up its secret. ‘I wonder what Daphne will think of this turbid Avon after she has seen Lake Leman,’ he speculated presently, ‘eh, Turchill?’ ‘The lake is a great deal wider,’ said Edgar, with his matter-of-fact air; ‘and those capital steamers are a great attraction.’ ‘A lake with steamers upon it! Too horrible!’ cried Daphne. ‘I shall not like it half so well as my romantic Avon, though its waters are sometimes “drumly.” Dear old Avon!’—they were at the boat-house by this time, and she was stepping on shore as she spoke—‘how long before I shall see you again?’ ‘Less than three months,’ said Edgar, clasping her hand as she sprang up the steps which Bink had cut in the meadow bank. ‘Not quite three months; and then, darling,’ in a lower tone, ‘you will be all my own, and I shall be the happiest man on earth.’