Kate told him half an hour, and he went off down the creek, keeping at the edge of the little meadow, with a change of clothing under his arm and a big bath towel hung over his shoulder. The two men followed him listlessly, too tired, evidently, to care much what they did.
Fred, leading the way, plunged through the willow fringe and came upon the creek bank three feet from where Marion lay curled up on her cushions. He stood for a minute looking down at her before his present, material needs dominated his admiration of her beauty—for beautiful she was, lying there in a nest of green, with her yellow hair falling loosely about her face.
"Hello! Asleep?" he called to her, much as he had called to Kate. "Afraid we'll have to ask you to move on, sister. We want to take a swim right here. And anyway, Kate wants you right away, quick. Wake up, like a good girl, and run along."
"I don't want to wake up. Go away and let me sleep." Marion opened her eyes long enough to make sure that he was standing right there waiting, and closed them again. "Go somewhere else and swim. There's lots of creek that isn't in use."
"No sir, by heck, I'm going to take my swim right here. I'm too doggone tired to walk another yard. Suit yourself about going, though. Don't let me hurry you at all." He sat down and began to unlace his shoes, grinning back over his shoulder at the other two who had not ventured down to the creek when they heard the voice of a woman there.
Marion sat up indignantly. "Go on down the creek, why don't you?"
"Oh, this place suits me fine." Fred, having removed one shoe, turned it upside down and shook out the sand, and began unlacing the other.
Marion waited stubbornly until he was pulling that shoe off, and then she gathered up her cushions and fled, flushed and angry. She was frequently angry with Fred, who never yielded an inch and never would argue or cajole. She firmly believed that Fred would actually have gone in swimming with her sitting there on the bank; he was just that stubborn. For that she sometimes hated him—since no one detests stubbornness so much as an obstinate person.
Fred looked after her, still smiling oddly because he had known so well how to persuade her to go back to the house and help Kate. Fred almost loved Marion Rose. He admitted to himself that he almost loved her—which is going pretty far for a man like Fred Humphrey. But he also admitted to himself that she could not make him happy, nor he her. To make Marion happy he believed that he would need to have about a million dollars to spend. To make him happy, Marion would need to take a little more interest in home making and not so much interest in beauty making. The frivolous vanity bag of hers, and her bland way of using it, like the movie actresses, in public, served to check his imagination before it actually began building air-castles wherein she reigned the queen.
He could have loved her so faithfully if only she were a little different! The nearest he came to building an air-castle was when he was lying luxuriously in a shallow part of the pool, where the water was not so cold.