“But still--oh, damn it all! To hear of your wife's death--casually--on a platform--from a chap you happen to know--happen to have met somewhere--oh, well, I call it casual. That's the word, I believe--casual. Well, it _is_ pretty casual--what? Now, just tell me what you think--between friends, of course.” She stopped him: she was short in the breath. “I think not. If you don't mind.” He became as serious, immediately, as he was capable of being. “I'll do as you like, my dear--but you'll let me say this, that if I could see you with all your belongings about you again, I should sing a hymn. That's all, Sancie; but it means a lot. When you went out of Great Cumberland Place, it became, somehow, another kind of place. I hardly ever go there now, you know. And now they're all married but you, and--I say, you heard that Vicky had a son and heir? Did you hear that?” She had averted her face, but she listened intensely, nodding her head. “Yes, yes, I knew that. Papa told me. He always writes to me, you know; from the office, poor darling!” She appealed to him urgently. “Please don't talk about them just yet. Please don't.” He saw the mist in her eyes, and was afraid. “All right, Sancie, all right. I'm frightfully sorry. Beastly painful all this, you know.” He was much disturbed. To his simple soul a fine day, a fine-fettled river demanded, as of right, a happy mood in man, for whom all things were made. And a fine girl by his side, a good, a brave, a splendid girl--down on her luck--on such a day! What could one do? If, when you began, she choked you off! Wouldn't meet you half-way--bottled it up! And here he was, geared for fishing, and without the heart to wet a line, because of all this misery. Sanchia, sharply in profile to him, from cheek to chin, from shoulder to low breast, all one sinuous, lax, beautiful line, broke in on his rueful meditations. “There's a rise,” she said. “Look, look.” His eye swept the river. “You're right. By Gad, that's a whacker. That's a fish. Now, you stop just where you are, net in hand. Don't move, and you shall see something.” He left her, and ran stooping down the bank, all his little soul concentrated in his cast. The dimpled water ran and swirled, the line flashed in the sun. Three casts, four; a splash, a taut line, and his shout, “Come on, quick; I've got him.” Sanchia glided swiftly down the bank, her eyes alight, the lines of neck and shoulder finely alert. Her eyes shone, her lips parted; she looked the Divine Huntress to whom Senhouse had once likened her. She stooped, the net jerked; she watched, waited, tense to the act. Within the swirling water the great fish plunged: she watched, strung to the pounce; the net dipped and darted; she lifted it to land. Chevenix admired. “By George, you are a one--er, I must say! Born to it. You strike like an osprey. That's a fish--what?” They peered together into the net, where, coiled and massy, beaming rose and pale gold, the trout writhed.