The consequence was that the following day he again bent his footsteps in the direction of the bridge.
"It’s a lovely afternoon," he said, lifting his hat.
"But a weary one," said she, smiling, with a little pensive movement of the head.
"Not a weary one for the carp," he hinted, glancing down at the water, which boiled and bubbled with a greedy multitude.
"Oh, they have no human feelings," said she.
"Don’t you call hunger a human feeling?" he inquired.
"They have no human feelings; but I never said we hadn’t plenty of carp feelings," she answered him.
He laughed. "At all events, I’m pleased to find that we’re or the same way of thinking."
"Are we?" asked she, raising surprised eyebrows.
"You take a healthy pessimistic view of things," he submitted.
"I? Oh, dear, no. I have never taken a pessimistic view of anything in my life."
"Except of this poor summer's afternoon, which has the fatal gift of beauty. You said it was a weary one."
"People have sympathies,” she explained;“ and besides, that is a watchword." And she scattered a handful of crumbs, thereby exciting a new commotion among the carp.
Her explanation no doubt struck Ferdinand Augustus as obscure; but perhaps he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough to press for enlightenment. "Let us hope that the fine weather will last," he said, with a polite salutation, and resumed his walk.
But, on the morrow, "You make a daily practice or casting your bread upon the waters," was his greeting to her. "Do you expect to find it at the season’s end?"
