ather. Their eyes met in new and difficult
readjustment and Kenny, his heart turbulent, turned back to the punt.

It was in his mind gallantly to scull the thing across. The
announcement brought Joan to the edge of the water in a panic.

"You'd scull us both into a rock!" she exclaimed. "The river is full
of them. I know the best way over."

"Professional jealousy!" retorted Kenny, his eyes droll and tender. "I
suppose you belong to the ferryman's union." He dropped his knapsack
into the boat and busied himself with the painter. "If the boat had
two oars," he told her laughing, "or I one arm, I know I could manage.
As it is, one oar and two arms--"

"It's much better," said Joan sensibly, "than two oars and one arm.
Please get in."

She went to the stern and stood there, waiting, one hand upon the oar.
Fascinated, Kenny climbed in.

What a ferryman! he mused as Joan sculled the punt from shore. What a
gown and what a background! The old brocade, flapping in the wind, was
gold like the afterglow behind the gables and the soft, haunting
shadows in the girl's eyes and hair. What an ecstasy of unreality!
Boat and ferryman seemed some exquisite animate medallion of another
age.

Garry could have told him it was the way he saw his pictures, romantic
in his utter abandon, but Garry was not there and Kenny with his head
in the clouds rushed on to his doom. The punt was a fairy boat sailing
him over a silver river to Hy Brazil, the Isle of Delight. Ah! Hy
Brazil! You saw it on clear days and it receded when you followed. It
was a melancholy thought and true. The madness never lasted.

There are those for whom the present is merely anticipation of the
future or reminiscence of the past. Kenny had the supreme gift of
living intensely and joyously in the present and the present for him
shone in the soft brown eyes of the ferryman in the stern. Past and
future he shrugged to the winds. For he was sailing across to romance,
he hoped, and surely to mystery. Yes, surely to mystery! Mystery
enough for any Celt in the battered horn, the ferry and the ferryman
yonder in the old-time gown.

[Illustration: He was sailing across to romance, he hoped, and surely
to mystery.]

"It was down there," said Joan, nodding, "where the river bends, that
Brian had his camp."

Brian's name was a shock. Kenny came to earth for an instant. Only
for an instant. The monochrome of gold behind the gables was drifting
int