“Not if I am interested,” she said quietly.

He felt that his ears were growing red; she noticed it, too, and added:  “I do not mean to be too rude; and I am quite sure you do not either.”

“Of course not,” he said; “only I couldn’t help seeing the humour of romance in our ocean encounter.  I think anybody would—­except you—­”

“What?”

The crisp, quick question which, with her, usually seemed like an exclamation, always startled him into temporary silence; then he began more carefully: 

“There was one chance in a million of your finding my boat in the fog.  If you hadn’t found it—­” He shook his head.  “And so I wish you might recognise in our encounter something amusing, humourous”—­he looked cautiously at her—­“even mildly romantic—­ah—­enough to—­to—­”

“To what?”

“Why—­to say—­to do something characteristically—­ah—­”

“What?”

“—­Human!” he ventured—­quite prepared to see her rise wrathfully and go overboard.

Instead she remained motionless, those clear, disconcerting eyes fixed steadily on him.  Once or twice he thought that her upper lip quivered; that some delicate demon of laughter was trying to look out at him under the lashes; but not a lid twitched; the vivid lips rested gravely upon each other.  After a silence she said: 

“What is it, human, that you expect me to do?  Flirt with you?”

“Good Lord, no!” he said, stampeded.

She was now paying him the compliment of her full attention; he felt the dubious flattery, although it slightly scared him.

“Why is it,” she asked, “that a man is eternally occupied in thinking about the effect he produces on woman—­whether or not he knows her—­that seems to make no difference at all?  Why is it?”

He turned redder; she sat curled up, nursing both ankles, and contemplating him with impersonal and searching curiosity.

“Tell me,” she said; “is there any earthly reason why you and I should be interested in each other—­enough, I mean, to make any effort toward civility beyond the bounds of ordinary convention?”

He did not answer.

“Because,” she added, “if there is not, any such effort on your part borders rather closely on the offensive.  And I am quite sure you do not intend that.”

He was indignant now, but utterly incapable of retort.

“Is there anything romantic in it because a chance swimmer rests a few moments in somebody’s boat?” she asked.  “Is that chance swimmer superhuman or inhuman or ultra-human because she is not consciously, and simperingly, preoccupied with the fact that there happens to be a man in her vicinity?”

“Good heavens!” he broke out, “do you think I’m that sort of noodle—­”

“But I don’t think about you at all,” she interrupted; “there is not a thought that I have which concerns you as an individual.  My homily is delivered in the abstract.  Can’t you—­in the abstract—­understand that?—­even if you are a bit doubtful concerning the seven deadly conventions?”