Page:JM Barrie--My lady nicotine.djvu/128

124 mentalize over my own decay. They were in a punt, her hand trailing in the water, when I became his. When they parted that night at Cookham Lock, he held her head in his hands, and they gazed in each other's eyes. Then he turned away quickly; when he reached the punt again he was whistling. Several times before we came to the house-boat in which he and another man lived, he felt in his pocket to make sure that I was still there. At the house-boat he put me in a tumbler of water out of sight of his friend, and frequently he stole to the spot like a thief to look at me. Early next morning he put me in his button-hole, calling me sweet names. When his friend saw me, he too whistled, but not in the same way. Then my owner glared at him. This happened many months ago.

"Next evening I was in a garden that slopes to the river. I was on his breast, and so for a moment was she. His voice was so soft and low as he said to her the words he had said to me the night before, that I slumbered in a dream. When I awoke suddenly he was raging at her, and she cried. I know not why they quarreled so quickly, but it was about some one whom he called 'that fellow,' while she called him a 'friend of papa's.' He looked at her for a long time again, and then said coldly that he wished her a very good-evening.