“Thanks,” says Charley. “I might have been, perhaps, if I had struck my head against the rock. Luckily I had presence of mind enough to turn a somersault, so I escaped a fractured skull.” “You’ll not escape a cold, if you don’t go at once to the hotel and change your dress,” I say anxiously. “Miss Hollis will excuse you, since you have suffered such a misadventure in her service.” “I will go with him!” cries Miss Hollis, eagerly. “Since he suffered in my service, I should be _very_ ungrateful to send him back alone.” “You are exceedingly kind,” says Charley, “but I must deprive myself of the pleasure of your companionship, for once. You would not fancy the rate at which I must walk—not to speak of my excessive dampness.” He rises as he speaks—a ludicrous figure, certainly—and moves away. In reaching the bank he passes Sylvia, who has not uttered a word since he fell. “I hope you were not very much startled,” he says, pausing before her, with a laugh. “Not at all,” she answers, looking at him with a cool, bright glance. “You know my nerves are very good. I had no idea that you would be drowned.” “And would not have cared very much if I had been, I dare say,” he remarks carelessly. “Good nerves are capital things—in their way.—Well, _au revoir_ to you all!— Miss Hollis, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you in the ballroom to-night.” He disappears, shaking himself like a Newfoundland dog as he goes. When the last glimpse of his figure has vanished, we look at each other and, yielding to an overmastering inclination, burst into a peal of laughter. Miss Hollis appears in the ballroom with the lobelia in her hair that night, but Charley’s devotion is by no means so excessive as it has been. Whether the plunge-bath has cooled his ardor, or whether he is alarmed by the melting glances with which the young lady favors him, it is impossible to say, but the change in his manner is very evident. I remark this when he comes down and sits by me. “One can’t keep a flirtation at high-water mark all the time,” he says. “There must be ebbs in all tides. To tell you the truth, Miss Hollis is pretty, but insipid to an appalling degree.” “You must have made that discovery very recently.” “No, I have been aware of it for some time; but there are certain moods in which one is more intolerant of insipidity than in others.” “I am afraid you bear malice for your plunge in the pool; but you had your own folly to blame for that, as well as hers. By-the-by, do you think you will suffer from it?” “Suffer!” he laughs. “Not in the least. How well Sylvia is looking to-night! I suppose it is not worth while for me to ask her to dance—she would certainly be ‘engaged.’ Does she mean to marry that fellow Lanier?” “You had better ask her if you are curious on the subject. I have no patience with men who try to obtain such information at second hand. A faint heart never yet won a woman—and never deserved to win one!”