"Now, let me make you as comfortable as I can.

We ought to have had a gondola," he added, as he handed her to the seat in the stern.
She leant back with her sunshade over her shoulder, and Stafford, as he slipped off his blazer and rowed out towards the centre of the lake, looked at her with unconscious admiration.

She was simply, perfectly dressed in a yachting costume of white and pale-blue, which set off to the fullest advantage her exquisite complexion and her red-gold hair.
But it was admiration of the coldest kind, for even at that moment he was thinking of the girl in the well-worn habit, the girl he loved with a passion that made his slightest thought of her a psalm of worship.
And Maude, though she appeared half asleep, like a beautiful wild animal basking in the warmth of the sun, glanced at him now and again and noted the strength and grace of his figure, the almost Grecian contour of the handsome face.

She had made her wager with Howard on the spur of the moment, prompted by the vanity of a woman piqued by the story of Stafford's indifference to her sex; but as she looked at him she wondered how a woman would feel if she fell in love with him.

But she had no fears for herself; there was a coldness in her nature which had hitherto guarded her from the fever which men call love, and she thought herself quite secure.