She flushed up, vexed, silent, then looked directly at him with beautiful hostile eyes. "What do you mean, Mr. Siward? Are you taking our harmless, idle badinage as warrant for an intimacy unwarranted?"
"Have I offended?" he asked, so impassively that a flash of resentment brought her to her feet, angry and self-possessed.
"How far have we to go?" she asked quietly.
He rose to his feet, turned, hailing the keeper, repeating the question. And at the answer they both started forward, the dog ranging ahead through a dense growth of beech and chestnut, over a high brown ridge, then down, always down along a leafy ravine to the water's edge--a forest pond set in the gorgeous foliage of ripening maples.
"I don't see," said Sylvia impatiently, "how we are going to obey instructions and go straight ahead. There must be a stupid boat somewhere!"
But the game-laden keeper shook his head, pulled up his hip boots, and pointed out a line of alder poles set in the water to mark a crossing.
"Am I expected to wade?" asked the girl anxiously.
"This here," observed the keeper, "is one of the most sportin' courses on the estate. Last season I seen Miss Page go through it like a scared deer--the young lady, sir, that took last season's cup"--in explanation to Siward, who stood doubtfully at the water's edge, looking back at Sylvia.
Raising her dismayed eyes she encountered his; there was a little laugh between them. She stepped daintily across the stones to the water's edge, instinctively gathering her kilts in one hand.
"Miles and I could chair you over," suggested Siward.
"Is that fair--under the rules?"
"Oh, yes, Miss; as long as you go straight," said the keeper.
So they laid aside the guns and the guide's game-sack, and formed a chair with their hands, and, bearing the girl between them, they waded out along the driven alder stakes, knee-deep in brown water.
Before them herons rose into heavy flapping flight, broad wings glittering in the sun; a diver, distantly afloat among the lily pads, settled under the water to his eyes as a submarine settles till the conning-tower is awash.
Her arm, lightly resting around his neck, tightened a trifle as the water rose to his thighs; then the faint pressure relaxed as they thrashed shoreward through the shallows, ankle deep once more, and landed among the dry reeds on the farther bank.
Miles, the keeper, went back for the guns. Siward stamped about in the sun, shaking the drops from water-proof breeches and gaiters, only to be half drenched again when Sagamore shook himself vigorously.