"Miss you? Why, of course!" She was full of wondering, and to him, delicious surprise. "We have been such friends, haven't we? Ever since that night you showed me about the dancing? I've been amazed since that I had the courage, when I hardly knew a step, but after all it was very much like dancing to the singing of the birds, and I had often done that. Olive didn't like it. We were not good friends for ever so long afterwards."
"Olive wants to be head and front of everything, and have the main attention. I'm sorry not to stay to the wedding—it will be a grand affair. And no doubt next year Olive will go off. You haven't many girl friends, have you?"
"Well,"—she hesitated delicately and smiled in a half absent but adorable fashion,—"I do not believe I have. You see, we seem to live a little apart up on this hill, and there have been lessons, and riding about on the pony, and going over to your house, and most of the girls are larger——"
"The children all adore you. Oh, I hope you will go over often. I don't know what Isola would do without you."
"Yes, I shall," she said. "I'm so fond of music. If I were a poet, a real poet, you know," and she flushed charmingly, "I should write little songs to her music. They go through my brain with lovely words, and I can see them, but they don't stay long enough to be written down. Oh, yes, I shall go over often. And we shall talk about you. Of course, you will write to your father, and we shall hear."
"Yes." Something, perhaps not quite new, but deeper and stronger than any emotion he had ever known before, stirred within him. If he were going to stay here he would insist upon being her best friend, her admirer, her—— He choked down some poignant pain that was delicious in spite of the hurt. He hated to think of leaving her behind, two long years. She would be seventeen then; yes, old enough for any man to marry—but she did not mean to marry, that was the comfort. And he believed it because he wanted to so very much. She was such an innocent child. If this tumult within him was love, it would frighten her, she would not know what it meant.
She slipped her hand in his. "We shall all be so sorry to have you go, but then you will return. And perhaps—oh, yes, I shall beg to go to London first," she cried eagerly.
He was different from an impulsive American. He had been trained to have great respect for the sacredness of young girls, and he owed a duty to his father, who had planned out a prosperous life for him.
The sun was dropping down into the ocean, and the fog, creeping along, sent gray and soft purplish dun tints to soften and almost hide the gold. And, oh, how the birds sang, freed most of them from family cares. The meadowlark, the oriole, the linnets, and the evening grosbeak, with a clear whistling chorus after the few melodious notes of his song. They both rose, and went scrambling down the winding path that defied Pablo's efforts to keep in order. The shifting sand and the stones so often loosened and made rough walking, so he held her up, and she skipped from one solid place to another.
Down below they were moving some houses on the newly cut street, so as to prepare for the next.