After they had passed under Magdalen Bridge they had the river very much to themselves: the rain had driven most of the voyagers to cover. For long stretches there was no sound but their own voices, the splash of the pole and the secret singing of birds. Jehane, with trailing hands and brooding eyes, watched this man; she wanted him--she did not know why--she wanted him for herself. Sometimes she became so concentrated in her mood that she forgot to listen to what was being said. Through her head went humming significant and disconnected stanzas, which she repeated over and over: “Or when the moon was overhead, Came two young lovers lately wed: 'I am half sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott.” Jehane had once been told that she was Pre-Raphaelite in appearance; she never forgot that--it explained her to herself. She had quarreled forever with a man who had said that Rossetti's women resulted from tuberculosis of the imagination. The truth of the remark was unforgivable--she knew that she herself suffered from some such spiritual malady. A question roused her from her trance. “I say, Billy, are you married yet?” It was extraordinary how Jehane's heart pounded as she waited for the question to be answered. He clasped his hands in supplication, “Promise not to tell my wife that we came out like this together.” Nan let the pole trail behind her and gazed down at him mockingly. Her face was flushed with the exertion of punting: the faint gold of the stormy afternoon, drifting through gray willows, spangled her hair and dress. “When you like you can make yourself as big an ass as anyone. I don't believe you are a pub: you're a big, lazy fellow playing truant. Answer my question.” “But Pepperminta, why should I?” “Don't call me ridiculous names. Answer my question.” Barrington stretched himself indolently on the cushions. “You've not changed a bit; you're just as funny and imperious as ever. Soon you'll stamp your little foot; when that fails, you'll try coaxing. After twelve years of being away from you, I can read you like a book.” “You can't; I never coax now. I scowl, and get angry and cruel.” He glanced up at her gentle, laughing face. “You couldn't make your face scowl, however much you tried.” Jehane told herself that they were two children, rehearsing an old game together. People must be very fond of one another to play a game of pretending to quarrel. She felt strangely grown up and out of it, and quite unreasonably hurt. Nan was surprising her at every turn. “You'll enjoy yourself much better,” he was saying, “if I leave you in suspense. You can spend your time in guessing what she looks like. Then you can start watching me closely to see whether I love her. And then you can wonder how much I'm going to tell her of what we say to each other.”