sought Louise's eyes, and they smiled at the fulfilment of her fears.
The second boat was nearing the slip and Louise had a moment in which to study her father-in-law. It was a reassuring, yet a trying moment, for she became unnerved and felt suddenly isolated. For two pins she would have cried. There was no definable reason for the emotion, unless it was due to her double reaction from the graveyard episode and the friendliness of her mother-in-law. They were all strangers, even Keble. In some ways Keble was more of a stranger than Dare,—less an acquaintance of her most hidden self. Her loneliness was associated, too, in some vague way with the easy, manly intimacy of the two figures in the boat, who were links in the chain of her own existence yet so detached from it. Keble was undeniably an integral part of her identity, yet as he sat at the oars he seemed to be some attractive young traveling companion she was destined never to know.
Lord Eveley, a lean, hale figure in tweeds, a fine old edition of his son, was reeling in his line, and speaking in a voice which carried perfectly across the still water. Keble made replies between the slow strokes of his oars. The yellow had faded from the light, and with its disappearance the dark shades of the trees took on a richer tone, and the water turned from glass to velvet. The grey of the pine needles changed to deep, blackish green, the narrow strip of shallow water was emerald merging into milky
