"That means I’m becoming truthful. Hooray! I see Bill’s happy finish." He picked up her soft little hand and kissed it. "Velvet and steel," he said—"the hand that rocks the world! Yes? No? Good-by, you little wretch! I’m going canoeing with my cousin Diana." "Did you say that mother has that telegram?" she asked naïvely, sliding from the window-sill to the floor. "Yes; and it’s a mile long—a bally serial, Christine—to be continued this evening, I expect." They clasped hands at the threshold; then she ran upstairs, and he sauntered out to the tennis court, where Diana still sat on her high perch knitting the silken tie, although below her the game had ended and the players had gone to the terrace for iced tea. "Well, of all pretty monuments!" he exclaimed. "You have the other one on the Madison Square tower beaten to a froth!" "Beware of my arrows," she said, smiling, as the wind blew her scarf into a silvery arc from her shoulders. "Arrows? No, I’m wrong; you look like the Angel of the Central Park Fountain." "I feel like the dickens," she said, folding her knitting and descending the steps. "Headache?" "No; I merely sat up too late, and I’m sleepy. It’s perfectly horrid that you can’t stop when you’re winning.... What did you wish me to do, Jim—canoe with you?" "I thought you wanted to." "Is _that_ why you asked me?" "I wanted to, also. Why do you always put me in wrong, Diana?" "Jim, _do_ I put you in wrong, as you call it?" "Sometimes." "Well, it’s horrid of me. Forgive me. I do try to be such good friends with you, and somehow I don’t succeed." "You—we _are_ good friends," he said; "you know perfectly well how I feel about you." They had walked as far as the river’s edge, where several green-hulled canvas canoes lay on the grass. "Suppose we walk," she said; "shall we? I’m too lazy to paddle. I’m sleepy, Jim. A walk ought to wake me up." "I know a ledge where you can take a cat nap," he said. "Accept forty winks from me, and we’ll paddle afterwards." So they strolled along the river path, fragrant with mint and vine and blossom; and presently the cool green of the woods enveloped them, and their feet pressed the moist, springy leaves of a forest path that led over little brooks and up a slope of young growth, all checkered with sun spots, to a vast overhanging ledge of rocks. "Just look at that moss!" exclaimed Diana. "I believe I’ll sit down on it this minute. Jim, do sit down. It’s like velvet, and there’s miles of it; and here is the most enchanting silver birch tree for my back to rest on, and some wood lilies to look at.... Isn’t this heavenly!" "Out of sight," he said lazily, stretching himself at her feet and glancing up at her. "Go ahead with your cat nap. I’ll time you half an hour." After a moment he laughed, and her eyebrows went up in a silent question. He said: "I never noticed it before. It’s odd." "Noticed what?" "How funny they are in outline—your eyes, I mean."