He thought she meant to answer; perhaps she meant to, but found no voice
at her disposal.

He dropped his bridle over a branch and, drawing off his gloves, walked
up to where she was standing.

"I knew you were at Pride's Hall," he said; "I'm aware, also, that
nobody there either expected or wished to see me. But I wanted to see
you; and little things of that sort couldn't keep me away. Where are the
others?"

She strove twice to answer him, then turned abruptly, steadying herself
against a birch-tree with one arm.

"Where are the others, Virginia?" he asked gently.

"On the rocks beyond."

"Picnicking?"

"Yes."

"How charming!" he said; "as though one couldn't see enough country out
of one's windows every minute in the year. But you can't tell where
sentiment will crop up; some people don't object to chasing ants off the
dishes and fishing sticks out of the milk. I do.... It's rather
fortunate I found you alone: saves a frigid reception and cruel comments
after I'm gone.... After I'm gone, Virginia."

He seated himself where the sunlight fell agreeably and looked off over
the valley. A shrunken river ran below--a mere thread of life through
its own stony skeleton--a mockery of what it once had been before the
white-hided things on two legs had cut the forests from the hills and
killed its cool mossy sources in their channels. The crushers of pulp
and the sawyers of logs had done their dirty work thoroughly; their
acids and their sawdust poisoned and choked; their devastation turned
the tree-clothed hill flanks to arid lumps of sand and rock.

He said aloud, "to think of these trees being turned into newspapers!"

He looked up at her whimsically.

"The least I can do is to help grow them again. As a phosphate I might
amount to something--if I'm carefully spaded in." And in a lower voice
just escaping mockery: "How are you, Virginia?"

"I am perfectly well."

"Are you well enough to sit down and talk to me for half an hour?"

She made no reply.

"Don't be dignified; there is nothing more inartistic, except a woman
who is trying to be brave on an inadequate income."

She did not move or look at him.

"Virginia--dear?"

"What?"

"Do you remember that day we met in the surf; and you said something
insolent to me, and bent over, laying your palms flat on the water,
looking at me over your shoulder?"

"Yes."

"You knew what you were doing?"

"Yes."

"This is part of the consequences. That'