The question rather took me aback. 'You are more the traditional Yankee than I had imagined; you pretend to tell a story and only ask a question. As for that lady, I never saw her before in my life. I should fancy her a Pole or an Austrian. But do get on with your story.' 'There is no real story with a beginning, middle, and end. Real life doesn't arrange itself in that way.' 'There is always a middle, at any rate.' 'I will plunge _in medias res_, then. Did you observe her paddling out?' 'To be sure I did.' 'And did you divine her object?' 'Well, as to that----' 'My dear Campbell, don't you see that it was a case of _fugit inter salices_? She paddled out in order that I might pursue her.' 'Oh! How did you find out that?' 'By intuition,' cried the poet enthusiastically. 'We are in such complete sympathy, she and I, that I feel what she feels. A motion of the shoulder, a turn of the neck, a flirt of the paddle, all bear a secret meaning to my eye. Why, for a quarter of an hour after starting out this morning, I could see nothing but her back; and you know there isn't ordinarily much--conversation in a person's back.' 'I believe you are right, Jeff.' 'But in this case,' he continued warmly, 'I saw through her back all that was going on in her mind.' 'Poetic insight. I have heard of it before, but never knew it to act so powerfully as it does with you.' 'Yes; and, in proof that I'm not mistaken, she did just what I knew she would do beforehand.' 'And what was that?' 'How good this chablis is! The first thing she did was to paddle straight out to sea. She did that to try my faith.' 'Did she succeed?' 'A poet's faith can move mountains,' said Jeff, a little inconsequently. 'Had I been as others--had I been less terribly in earnest--I should have got discouraged or offended and given up the chase. But that is not the Puritan style. I kept right on, and at last I forced her to alter her tactics.' 'And all this through the back of her head? Wonderful!' 'Well, so she altered her tactics, and--what do you think?' 'I haven't a glimmering.' 'She stopped--short,' said Jeff, leaning across the table with his blue eyes wide open and speaking in an impressive undertone; 'and there she sat perfectly still, with her back still turned towards me.' 'So that you might continue to read her thoughts?' 'Campbell, I trust you are not scoffing?' 'My dear fellow----' 'You are my friend, but there are some things----' 'Nothing injures friendship so much as unjust suspicions, Jeff,' I said, with a solemnity almost equalling his own. He softened at once. 'Forgive me, old fellow; I was hasty. The blood of Bunker Hill, you know. Well, and so I gained upon her--and here's her health, Campbell.' 'Bumpers!' said I; and again we set down our glasses empty. I began to feel a little warmed up myself. 'At last I was within ten yards of her. Just then I ran into one of those horrid blue jelly-fish, and it startled me so that I made a splash, and she----'