Behind them, up the hill, the cosy inn nestled among its quiet arbors. Across the river the ferryman sat whistling, waiting for his next fare to come up. Moving away through misty meadows on the further bank a white speck fluttered mothlike. “She'll get home all right, don't you think?” “Why not? She always does.” “But it'll be late by the time she reaches Cassingland. She's got to catch the tram into Oxford, to harness up and then to drive out to the rectory. It'll be late by the time she arrives.” “She'd have been later if she'd returned by river with us.--See, she's waving at the stile.--Girls have to do these thing's for themselves, Mr. Barrington, if they have no brothers.” He stroked his chin. “Girls who have no brothers should be allotted brothers by the State.” She faced him daringly. “I should like that. I might ask to have you appointed my brother.” “You would, eh! Seems to me that's what's happened.--Funny what a little customer Nan is for making her friends the friends of one another: she was just the same in the old days. One might almost suspect that she'd planned this from the start--bringing us out all comfy, and leaving us to go home together.--But, I say, can you punt?” “I can, but I'm not going to.” He stepped back from her involuntarily and eyed her. There was a thrill of excitement in her clear voice that warned and yet left him puzzled. She filled him with discomfort--discomfort that was not entirely unpleasant. While Nan was present, she had been watchful and silent; now it was as though she slipped back the bars of her reticence and stepped out. He tingled with an unaccustomed sense of danger. He weighed his words before expressing the most trifling sentiment. Usually he was recklessly spontaneous; now he feared lest his motives might be mistaken. What did she want of him? She had gazed down from the window and beckoned him with her eyes--him, a stranger. Whatever it was, Nan knew about it, and had cried about it the moment his back was turned. He distrusted anyone who made Nan cry. Silence between them was more awkward than words--surcharged with subtle promptings that words disguised; he took up the thread of their broken conversation. “If you're not going to punt, how are we going to get back? I'll do my best, but you've seen what a duffer I am.” “We'll sit in the stern and paddle. With the current running so strongly, we could almost drift back.”