"In that case you would have to row," and, with a slightly mocking
accent, "you couldn't row and sleep at the same time, you know."

"In that case I should never want to sleep. No, please, Miss DeBerczy,
don't look to the north again. Every time your gaze is riveted upon
that frozen region my heart sinks within me. I feel as if I were not
entertaining you as well as I should."

"Oh, don't let that illusion disturb you. I have never doubted that
you were entertaining me as well as you--could."

A brief silence fell upon them, broken only by the regular plash of
the oars. In the young man's conversational attacks there had been
nothing but a light play of sunny humour, but in this last retort of
hers there was something like the glimmer of cold steel. It wounded
him, yet he was unwilling either to conceal or reveal the hurt. But
Helene DeBerczy had this weakness, common to generous souls, that she
could not utter an ungenerous remark without suffering more than her
victim. So, scarcely more than a minute elapsed before she said
appealingly,

"You are not going to leave me with the last word, are you?"

"Is not that what your sex specially like to have?"

"Perhaps so. I should prefer to have the _best_ word, and--"

"And let a certain well-known gentleman take the hindmost?" supplied
the young man smilingly.