“Really, Captain Selwyn,” she said, “you are not one of those old-fashioned literary landmarks who objects through several chapters to a girl’s marrying—­are you?”

“Yes,” he said, “I am.”

“You are quite serious?”

“Quite.”

“You won’t let me?”

“No, I won’t.”

“Why?”

“I want you myself,” he said, smiling at last.

“That is flattering but horridly selfish.  In other words you won’t marry me and you won’t let anybody else do it.”

“That is the situation,” he admitted, freeing his line and trying to catch the crinkled silvery snell of the new leader.  It persistently avoided him; he lowered the rod toward Miss Erroll; she gingerly imprisoned the feathered fly between pink-tipped thumb and forefinger and looked questioningly at him.

“Am I to sit here holding this?” she inquired.

“Only a moment; I’ll have to soak that leader.  Is the water visible under that log you’re sitting on?”

She nodded.

So he made his way through the brush toward her, mounted the log, and, seating himself beside her, legs dangling, thrust the rod tip and leader straight down into the stream below.

Glancing around at her he caught her eyes, bright with mischief.

“You’re capable of anything to-day,” he said.  “Were you considering the advisability of starting me overboard?” And he nodded toward the water beneath their feet.

“But you say that you won’t let me throw you overboard, Captain Selwyn!”

“I mean it, too,” he returned.

“And I’m not to marry that nice young man?”—­mockingly sweet.  “No?  What!—­not anybody at all—­ever and ever?”

“Me,” he suggested, “if you’re as thoroughly demoralised as that.”

“Oh!  Must a girl be pretty thoroughly demoralised to marry you?”

“I don’t suppose she’d do it if she wasn’t,” he admitted, laughing.

She considered him, head on one side: 

“You are ornamental, anyway,” she concluded.

“Well, then,” he said, lifting the leader from the water to inspect it, “will you have me?”

“Oh, but is there nothing to recommend you except your fatal beauty?”

“My moustache,” he ventured; “it’s considered very useful when I’m mentally perplexed.”

“It’s clipped too close; I have told you again and again that I don’t care for it clipped like that.  Your mind would be a perfect blank if you couldn’t get hold of it.”

“And to become imbecile,” he said, “I’ve only to shave it.”

She threw back her head and her clear laughter thrilled the silence.  He laughed, too, and sat with elbows on his thighs, dabbling the crinkled leader to and fro in the pool below.

“So you won’t have me?” he said.

“You haven’t asked me—­have you?”

“Well, I do now.”

She mused, the smile resting lightly on lips and eyes.