"Temptation?" she echoed.

"Is it not theft you're bent on?"

"Theft? This is a monk's orchard, not a peasant's plot."

"Confiscation, then," he humorously conceded.

"Since they pay no taxes on their cherries they might at least," she
argued, "spare a few to us poor taxpayers."

"Ah," said her father, "I want to tax their cherries, not to gather
them." He slipped a hand through her arm. "Come, child," said he, "does
not the philosopher tell us that he who enjoys a thing possesses it? The
flowers are yours already!"

"Oh, are they?" she retorted. "Then why doesn't the loaf in the baker's
window feed the beggar that looks in at it?"

"Casuist!" he cried and drew her up the bend of the road.

Odo stood gazing after them. Their words, their aspect, seemed an echo
of his reading. The father in his plain broadcloth and square-buckled
shoes, the daughter with her unpowdered hair and spreading hat, might
have stepped from the pages of the romance. What a breath of freshness
they brought with them! The girl's cheek was clear as the
cherry-blossoms, and with what lovely freedom did she move! Thus Julie
might have led Saint Preux through her "Elysium." Odo crossed the road
and, breaking one of the blossoming twigs, thrust it in the breast of
his uniform. Then he walked down the hill to the inn where the horses