‘Isn’t it? Do you know, they’ll suspect us of the most desperate flirtation on this exquisite secluded river.’ ‘_Will_ they?’ She was troubled. ‘What common minds! As if a man couldn’t be alone with a girl without making love to her.’ ‘Oh, I do agree, Roddy.’ He threw back his head and laughed silently: he had been laughing all the time. And it had seemed for a moment that Roddy was prepared for the first time in her memory to have a little serious conversation. ‘Oh, Roddy, how you do laugh at me!’ ‘I can’t help it, Judy. You are so incredibly solemn. You don’t mind, do you? Please don’t mind. I adore people who make me laugh.’ It was that his laughter left her out, making her feel heavy and unhumorous. If only he would teach her to play with him, how quick and apt he would find her! ‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Only I do wish I could be ready for you.’ Being himself, was Roddy more likely or less likely to fall in love with a person he never took seriously? ‘You’d forgive anybody, however badly they treated you, wouldn’t you, Judy?’ ‘Forgiving or not forgiving doesn’t mean much to me. I never could feel wronged. I might not be able to help feeling hurt, but _forgiveness_ wouldn’t come into it.’ ‘Hmm!’ said Roddy. ‘Are you sure you’re so civilized? Personally I never forgive anybody anything. I’m like God. I love my grievances, and want people to feel them.’ ‘I know you’re laughing really. I know it isn’t true, what you say.’ He said quickly, quite seriously: ‘I never would forgive a person who made a fool of me.’ ‘I wouldn’t _like_ it; but if it only affected myself, it wouldn’t be important. A thing that happens to yourself alone doesn’t _matter_.’ She stopped and blushed painfully, thinking: ‘How he’ll mock.’ But instead he looked at her gravely and nodded, saying: ‘I dare say you’re right.’ It was beginning to get dark. He steered the canoe under the willows into narrow shadinesses, lit a cigarette and lay back watching her. ‘And what will they teach you at college, Judy?’ No one but he knew how to say ‘Judy.’ ‘I don’t know, Roddy. I’m rather frightened,--not about the reading,--about the girls, all the people. I don’t understand a bit how to live with lots of people. I never have. I shall make such mistakes. It oppresses me, such a weight of lives crammed together in one building, such a terrifying press of faces. I prefer living alone.’ ‘Don’t get standardized, or I shan’t come and visit you.’ ‘Will you come and visit me?’ ‘If I ever find myself not too desperately busy,’ he said twinkling.