were not. And, very gradually, he began to realise that the
unconventional, always so attractive to the casual young man, did not
interest her at all, even enough to be aware of it or of him.

This cool unconsciousness of self, of him, of a situation which to any
wholesome masculine mind contained the germs of humour, romance, and all
sorts of amusing possibilities, began to be a little irksome to him. And
still her aloofness amused him, too.

"Do you know of any decorous reason why we should not talk to each
other occasionally during this fog?" he asked.

She turned her head, considered him inattentively, then turned it away
again.

"No," she said indifferently; "what did you desire to say?"

Resting on his oars, the unrequited smile still forlornly edging his
lips, he looked at his visitor, who was staring into the fog, lost in
her own reflections; and never a glimmer in her eyes, never a quiver of
lid or lash betrayed any consciousness of his gaze or even of his
presence. And he continued to inspect her with increasing annoyance.

The smooth skin, the vivid lips slightly upcurled, the straight delicate
nose, the cheeks so smoothly rounded where the dark thick lashes swept
their bloom as she looked downward at the water--all this was abstractly
beautiful; very lovely, too, the full column of the neck, and the
rounded arms guiltless of sunburn or tan.

So unusually white were both neck and arms that Hamil ventured to speak