And I can’t get away from it. I want to – and then something grabs me – ugh!’

She got up decidedly and went to the music stand. ‘If that’s a relic of my past I must have been prematurely cut off by an enraged ape! Anyhow, I don’t like water – unless it’s wild ocean. What shall I play?’

He meant to rise next morning with the daylight, but failed to awaken; and when he did look out he saw the canoe shooting lightly home in time for breakfast.

She laughed at him for his laziness, but promised a lesson later, and was pleased to find that he could play tennis. He looked well in his white flannels, in fact his appearance was more admirable than his playing, and the girl beat him till he grew almost angry.

Mrs Osgood watched delightedly on occasions where watching was agreeable, and on other occasions she took herself off with various excuses, and left them much together.

He expressed to her privately a question as to whether he was not too heavy for the canoe, but she reassured him.

‘O, no, indeed, Mr Pendexter; it’s a specially wide canoe, and has air chambers in it – it can’t sink.’ Her father had made it for her. ‘He’s a heavy man himself, and loves canoeing.’

So the stalwart poet was directed to step softly into the middle, and given the bow paddle.

It grieved him much that he could not see his fair instructress, and he proposed that they change places.

‘No, indeed!’ she said. ‘Trust you with the other paddle? – Not yet!’

Could he not at least face her, he suggested. At which she laughed wickedly, and told him he’d better learn to paddle forward before he tried to do it backward.

‘If you want to look at me you might get another canoe and try to follow,’ she added, smiling; whereat he declared her would obey orders absolutely.

He sat all across the little rattan bow seat, and rolled up his sleeves as she did. She gave him the paddle, showed him how to hold it, and grinned silently as his mighty strokes swung them to right or left, for all her vigorous steering.

‘Not so hard!’ she said. ‘You are stronger than I, and your stroke is so far out you swing me around.’

With a little patience he mastered the art sufficiently to wield a fairly serviceable bow paddle, but she would not trust him with the stern; and not all the beauties of the quiet lake consoled him for losing sight of her. Still, he reflected, she could see him. Perhaps that was why she kept him there in front! – and he sat straighter at the thought.

She did rather enjoy the well proportioned bulk of him, but she had small respect for his lack of dexterity, and felt a real dislike for the heavy fell of black hair on his arms and hands.

He tired of canoeing. One cannot direct speaking glances over one’s shoulder, nor tender words; not with good effect, that is. At tennis he found her so steadily victor that he tired of that too. Golf she did not care for; horses he was unfamiliar with; and when she ran the car her hands and eyes and whole attention were on the machine. So he begged for walking.

‘You must having charming walks in these woods,’ he said. ‘I own inferiority in many ways – but I can walk!’

‘All right,’ she cheerily agreed, and tramped about the country with him, brisk and tireless.

Her mother watched breathlessly. She wholly admired this ox-eyed man with the velvet voice, the mouth so red under his soft mustache. She thought his poetry noble and musical beyond measure. Ellen thought it was ‘no mortal use.’

‘What on earth does he want to make over those old legends for, anyway!’ she said, when her mother tried to win her to some appreciation. ‘Isn’t there enough to write about today without going back to people who never existed anyhow – nothing but characters out of other people’s stories?’

‘They are parts of the world’s poetic material, my dear; folk-lore, race-myths. They are among our universal images.’

‘Well, I don’t like poetry about universal images, that’s all. It’s like mummies – sort of warmed over and dressed up!’

‘I am so sorry!’ said her mother, with some irritation. ‘Here we are honored with a visit from one of our very greatest poets – perhaps the greatest; and my own child hasn’t sense enough to appreciate his beautiful work. You are so like your father!’

‘Well, I can’t help it,’ said Ellen. ‘I don’t like those foolish old stories about people who never did anything useful, and hadn’t an idea in their heads except being in love and killing somebody! They had no sense, and no courage, and no decency!’

Her mother tried to win her to some admission of merit in his other work.

‘It’s no use, mama! You may have your poet, and get all the esthetic satisfaction you can out of it. And I’ll be polite to him, of course. But I don’t like his stuff.’

‘Not his “Lyrics of the Day,” dear? And “The Woods”?’

‘No, mumsy, not even those. I don’t believe he ever saw a sunrise – unless he got up on purpose and set himself before it like a camera! And woods! Why he don’t know one tree from another!’

Her mother almost despaired of her; but the poet was not discouraged.

‘Ah! Mrs Osgood! Since you honor me with your confidence I can but thank you and try my fate. It is so beautiful, this budding soul – not opened yet! So close – so almost hard! But when its rosy petals do unfold –’

He did not, however, give his confidence to Mrs Osgood beyond this gentle poetic outside view of a sort of floricultural intent.