e!"

"Do you know that we're getting farther off, not nearer? This river
flows."

"Splendid!" cried Mont, dipping his sculls vaguely; "it's good to meet a
girl who's got wit."

"But better to meet a young man who's got it in the plural."

Young Mont raised a hand to tear his hair.

"Look out!" cried Fleur. "Your scull!"

"All right! It's thick enough to bear a scratch."

"Do you mind sculling?" said Fleur severely. "I want to get in."

"Ah!" said Mont; "but when you get in, you see, I shan't see you any
more to-day. Fini, as the French girl said when she jumped on her bed
after saying her prayers. Don't you bless the day that gave you a French
mother, and a name like yours?"

"I like my name, but Father gave it me. Mother wanted me called
Marguerite."

"Which is absurd. Do you mind calling me M. M. and letting me call you
F. F.? It's in the spirit of the age."

"I don't mind anything, so long as I get in."

Mont caught a little crab, and answered: "That was a nasty one!"

"Please row."

"I am." And he did for several strokes, looking at her with rueful
eagerness. "Of course, you know," he ejaculated, pausing, "that I came
to see you, not your father's pictures."

Fleur rose.

"If you don't row, I shall get out and swim."

"Really and truly? Then I could come in after you."

"Mr. Mont, I'm late and tired; please put me on shore at once."

When she stepped out on to the garden landing-stage he rose, and
grasping his hair with both hands, looked at her.

Fleur smiled.

"Don't!" cried the irrepressible Mont. "I know you're going to say:
'Out, damned hair!'"

Fleur whisked round, threw him a wave of her hand. "Good-bye, Mr.
M.M.!" she called, and was gone among the rose-trees. She looked at her
wrist-watch and the windows of the house. It struck her as curiously
uninhabited. Past six! The pigeons were just gathering to roost, and
sunlight slanted on the dovecot, on their snowy feathers, and beyond
in a shower on the top boughs of the woods. The click of billiard-balls
came from the ingle-nook--Jack Cardigan, no doubt; a faint rustling,
too, from an eucalyptus-tree, startling Southerner in this old English
garden. She reached the verandah and was passing in, but stopped at
the sound of voices from the drawing-room to her left. Mother! Monsieur
Profond! From behind the verandah screen which fenced the ingle-nook she
heard these words:

"I don't, Annette."

Did Father know that he called her mot