“Nina tells me that this water rises in the Connecticut hills,” he said, “and flows as a subterranean sheet under the Sound, spouting up here on Long Island when you drive a well.”

She looked at the column of flashing water, nodding silent assent.

They moved on, the girl curiously reserved, non-communicative, head slightly lowered; the man vague-eyed, thoughtful, pacing slowly at her side.  Behind them their long shadows trailed across the brilliant grass.

Traversing the grove which encircled the newly clipped lawn, now fragrant with sun-crisped grass-tips left in the wake of the mower, he glanced up at the pretty mermaid mother cuddling her tiny offspring against her throat.  Across her face a bar of pink sunlight fell, making its contour exquisite.

“Plunkitt tells me that they really laugh at each other in the moonlight,” he said.

She glanced up; then away from him: 

“You seem to be enamoured of the moonlight,” she said.

“I like to prowl in it.”

“Alone?”

“Sometimes.”

“And—­at other times?”

He laughed:  “Oh, I’m past that, as you reminded me a moment ago.”

“Then you did misunderstand me!”

“Why, no—­”

“Yes, you did!  But I supposed you knew.”

“Knew what, Eileen?” “What I meant.”

“You meant that I am hors de concours.”

“I didn’t!”

“But I am, child.  I was, long ago.”

She looked up:  “Do you really think that, Captain Selwyn?  If you do—­I am glad.”

He laughed outright.  “You are glad that I’m safely past the spooning age?” he inquired, moving forward.

She halted:  “Yes.  Because I’m quite sure of you if you are; I mean that
I can always keep you for myself.  Can’t I?”

She was smiling and her eyes were clear and fearless, but there was a wild-rose tint on her cheeks which deepened a little as he turned short in his tracks, gazing straight at her.

“You wish to keep me—­for yourself?” he repeated, laughing.

“Yes, Captain Selwyn.”

“Until you marry.  Is that it, Eileen?”

“Yes, until I marry.”

“And then we’ll let each other go; is that it?”

“Yes.  But I think I told you that I would never marry.  Didn’t I?”

“Oh!  Then ours is to be a lifelong and anti-sentimental contract!”

“Yes, unless you marry.”

“I promise not to,” he said, “unless you do.”

“I promise not to,” she said gaily, “unless you do.”

“There remains,” he observed, “but one way for you and I ever to marry anybody.  And as I’m hors de concours, even that hope is ended.”

She flushed; her lips parted, but she checked what she had meant to say, and they walked forward together in silence for a while until she had made up her mind what to say and how to express it: