coming down the narrow garden path. Neither knew that neither had spoken
since they left the veranda; and it had taken them a long time to come
through the little orchard and the garden. She rested her chin on her
hand, leaning forward and looking steadily at the creek. Her laughter had
quite gone; her attitude seemed a little wistful and a little sad. He
noted that her hair curled over her brow in a way he had not pictured in
the lady of his dreams; this was so much lovelier. He did not care for
tall girls; he had not cared for them for almost half an hour. It was so
much more beautiful to be dainty and small and piquant. He had no notion
that he was sighing in a way that would have put a furnace to shame, but
he turned his eyes from her because he feared that if he looked longer he
might blurt out some speech about her beauty. His glance rested on the
bank; but its diameter included the edge of her white skirt and the tip of
a little, white, high-heeled slipper that peeped out beneath it; and he
had to look away from that, too, to keep from telling her that he meant to
advocate a law compelling all women to wear crisp, white gowns and white
slippers on moonlight nights.

She picked a long spear of grass from the turf before her, twisted it
absently in her fingers, then turned to him slowly. Her lips parted as if
to speak. Then she turned away again. The action was so odd, and somehow,
as she did it, so adorable, and the preserved silence was such a bond
between them, that for his life he could not have helped moving half-way
up the bench toward her.

"What is it?" he asked; and he spoke in a whisper he might have used at
the bedside of a dying friend. He would not have laughed if he had known
he did so. She twisted the spear of grass into a little ball and threw it
at a stone in the water before she answered.