"It _is_ pretty," she said grudgingly, and at the same moment turned away, for in a flower-hung balcony across the water she saw _him_.
"This is too absurd," she said. "I must get out of the place--at least, for the day. I'll go to Ghent."
He had seen her, and a thrill of something very like gratified vanity straightened his shoulders. When a girl has jilted you, it is comforting to find that even after three years she has not forgotten you enough to be indifferent, no matter how you may have consoled yourself in the interval.
Elizabeth walked fast, but she did not get to the railway station, because she took the wrong turning several times. She passed through street after strange street, and came out on a wide quay; another canal; across it showed old, gabled, red-roofed houses. She walked on and came presently to a bridge, and another quay, and a little puffing, snorting steamboat.
She hurriedly collected a few scattered items of her school vocabulary--
"_Est-ce que--est-ce que--ce bateau à vapeur va--va_--anywhere?"
A voluble assurance that it went at twelve-thirty did not content her. She gathered her forces again.
"_Oui; mais où est-ce qu'il va aller--?_"
The answer sounded something like "Sloosh," and the speaker pointed vaguely up the green canal.
Elizabeth went on board. This was as good as Ghent. Better. There was an element of adventure about it. "Sloosh" might be anywhere; one might not reach it for days. But the boat had not the air of one used to long cruises; and Elizabeth felt safe in playing with the idea of an expedition into darkest Holland.
And now by chance, or because her movements interested him as much as his presence repelled her, this same Edward Brown also came on board, and, concealed by the deep daydream into which she had fallen, passed her unseen.
When she shook the last drops of the daydream from her, she found herself confronting the boat's only other passenger--himself.
She looked at him full and straight in the eyes, and with the look her embarrassment left her and laid hold on him.
"If ever we meet again, we meet as strangers." Well, he had kept to the very letter of that bidding, and she had been angry. He had been very glad to see that she was angry. But now, face to face for an hour and a half--for he knew the distance to Sluys well enough--could he keep silence still and yet avoid being ridiculous? He did not intend to be ridiculous; yet even this might have happened. But Elizabeth saved him.