Of course, I know you are only chaffing me." "Isn't it true--about the duchess, I mean ?" she asked, so coolly, so indifferently, that Stafford was compelled to take her seriously.
"Nary a word," he said, brightly; then, with a sudden gravity: "If you happen to hear such nonsense again, Miss Falconer, you can, if you care to, contradict it flatly.

I am not in the least likely to marry a duchess; indeed, I wouldn't marry the highest and greatest of them, if she'd have me, which is highly improbable." "Do you mean to say that you have no ambition, that you would marry for--love ?" she asked.
Stafford stopped rowing for a moment and looked at her grimly.
"What on earth else should I marry for ?" he asked.

"Wouldn't you ?" Before she could answer, the steamer came abreast of them, and so close that the swell from its screw set the slight, narrow skiff dancing and plunging on the waves.
Maude uttered a faint cry and leant forward, and Stafford, fearing she was going to rise, stretched out his hand, and touching her knee, forced her into her seat again, and kept her there until the swell had subsided.
The colour flooded her face at the pressure of his strong hand, which was like a steel weight, and she caught her breath.

Then, as he took his hand away and resumed rowing, he said: "I beg your pardon! I was afraid you were going to get up--a girl I once had in a boat did so and we upset." "The boat is very small," she said, in a low voice, almost one of apology.
"Oh, it's all right, so long as you sit still, and keep your head," he said.

"It could ride over twice as big a swell as this." She looked at him from under her lowered lids with a new expression in her face, a faint tremor on her lips; and, as if she could not meet his eyes, she glanced back with an affectation of interest at the steamer.
As she did so, something dropped from it into the lake.
"What was that ?" she said.