But perhaps I was troubling myself unnecessarily about this moonshine-marriage after all. What about him? He at least would see the monstrous anomaly and would never allow it. He at any rate knew that if there was one place on earth where no woman must come it was into his room between evening and dawn. Things far too terrifying and precise happened during those hours. He knew this, and five minutes between him and myself would settle Julia's business once for all. But again I saw in a flash where I was wrong. Five minutes between him and myself? It couldn't be done. Why? For the simple reason that, in order to talk to me at all on such a matter, he would have to be in his aware and "working" mood--the very mood in which he had always been inaccessible to her. My answer would be a stare from those steady grey-blue eyes. "Marry Julia!" he would exclaim. "My dear chap, what on earth are you talking about? If I'd ever dreamed of marrying Julia shouldn't I have done it years ago? It's the very last thing in the world I ever thought of!" That would be his reply to me. I should be warning him against a contingency he had never for a moment entertained. And yet--for even that was not the end of it--it was perfectly possible that with that word "Preposterous!" still on his lips he might go straight to her, hand her into the punt, once more alter his focus of intelligence, and be under her spell again before they were half-way across the pond.... Suddenly I heard his call below: "Quick, Julia, the net--I've got him on!" I stepped out on to the balcony to watch. It was one of the three-pounders, making a good fight for it. But he had little chance against my green-heart in Derry's hand. Three minutes settled it. There he lay on the bank, with Derry and Julia bending over him. I think she thought him a lucky fish to have been caught by Derry. I descended and joined them. "Going to try for another?" I asked him. But already he was taking down the rod. "No, we thought of doing a bit of crosscut sawing for a change." "Not the incinerator?" I hinted with a glance at Julia. "Ah yes, I'd forgotten about the incinerator," he exclaimed. "Which shall we do, Julia? Walk on to the blacksmith's or do the sawing? The sawing I think; it'll take some time to cut the rods, and we can send a lad with the sizes and fetch them after lunch. Do the boys come to bathe on Saturdays, George?" "They do," I said with another glance at her. I saw the little mutinous dip of the corners of her mouth. I am not going to take you in detail through the whole of that day. For half the afternoon they disappeared; they had gone for a walk in the neighbouring woods; but they were back in time for the bathing-parade. Again Derry swam, with the boys, while I lay with Julia in the punt.