"Thank you, thank you!" he said, with so much of admiration and
gratitude in his voice, that, as if to apologise for it, he said: "I'm
fond of music. But I'm forgetting your tea! Shall we pull back to the
Ferry Hotel and get some?"
"I'm in your hands," she replied, languidly.
He turned-the boat and pulled back along the centre of the lake in
silence. Suddenly she bent forward.
"There is something in the water," she said; "something alive."
"It's a--yes, it's a dog," he said. "That is what you saw drop over the
steamer. By George! the poor little chap looks in distress: seems as if
he were nearly done. Can you steer?" he asked, sharply.
"Oh, yes," she replied, languidly. "Why?"
"Because I'm going for him, and it will help me if you can steer
straight for him. He looks nearly played out."
"Why should you trouble--it's a long way off; it will be drowned before
you can get to it," she said.
"I'll have to go for it anyway," he said, cheerfully; and he began to
row hard.
Distance is deceptive on a lake, and the dog was farther off than they
thought; but Stafford put his back into it as hard as he had done in
his racing days, and Maude Falconer leant back and watched him with
interest, and something even stronger than interest, in her masked
eyes. He had turned up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, and the
muscles on his arms were standing out under the strain, his lips were
set tightly, and there was the man's frown of determination on his
brow.
"It has gone down: it's no use," she said. "You may as well stop and
rest."
He looked over his shoulder.
"No! He has come up again!" he exclaimed: it was noticeable that he
called the dog "he," while she spoke of it as "it." "We shall get him
in time. Keep the boat straight!"
The words were uttered in a tone of command, and they moved her as the
touch of his hand had done; and she set her mind upon the task as she
had never before set it upon anything.
Reaching well forward, pulling with the long, steady stroke of the
practised oarsman, Stafford sent the boat along like an arrow, and
presently he drove it up to the spot where the dog strove in its death
straggle.