Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/141

 been rude to my mother, or something dreadful. I'm perfectly horrid to her sometimes. And as it is, I have let her go up to town all alone—to see my dressmaker."

Sir Geoffrey stood up and began to take his rod to pieces. "And are you quite sure that you haven't been 'loathing and detesting' me all the afternoon?"

Dorothy picked up her novel and smoothed its leaves reflectively.

"I But no. I won't make you too conceited. Look, the sun is actually coming out! Don't you think we might take the Canadian up to the weir? You really ought to be introduced to the big chub under the bridge."

The rain had almost ceased, and when they had transferred themselves into the dainty canoe, a few strokes of the paddle which Miss Vandeleur wielded with such effective grace swept them out into a full flood of delicate evening sunlight. The sky smiled blue through rapidly increasing breaks in the clouds; the sunbeams, slanting from the west, touched with pale gold the quivering trees, which seemed to lift their wet branches and spread their leaves to court the warm caress. A new radiance of colour crept into the landscape, as if it had been a picture from which a smoky glass was withdrawn; the water grew very still—this too was in the manner of a picture—with the peace of a summer evening, brimming with an unbroken surface luminously from bank to bank. Strange guttural cries of water-birds sounded from the reed-beds; from the next reach came the rhythmic pulse of oars, faint splashes, and the brisk rattle of row-locks; voices and laughter floated down from the lock, travelling far beyond belief in the hushed stillness of the evening. The wake of the light canoe trailed unbroken to the shadows of the boathouse, and the wet paddle gleamed as it slid through the water. Presently Dorothy stayed her hand.