“Could you?” Marley leaned forward eagerly.
“I’d like to.” She was trailing one white hand in the water.
“Will you?”
“Yes,” she said. “We can do it over at Mayme’s—any time. She’ll play for us.”
Marley felt a great gratitude, and he wondered how he could pour it forth upon her.
“You are too good to me,” he exclaimed.
Then, suddenly, a change came over the dark surface of the waters. A mellow quality touched them; they seemed to tremble ecstatically, then they broke into sparkling ripples; the air quivered with a luminous beauty and a light flooded the little valley. Marley and Lavinia turned instinctively and looked up, and there, over the tops of the trees, black a moment before, now rounded domes of silver, rose the moon. They gazed at it a long time. Finally Marley turned and looked at Lavinia. Her white dress had become a drapery, her arms gleamed, her eyes were lustrous in the transfiguration of the moonlight. He could see that her lips were slightly parted, and her fingertips, dipped in the cool water over the gunwale of the boat, trailed behind them a long narrow thread of silver. They looked into each other’s eyes, and neither spoke. They drifted on. At last, Marley said:
“Lavinia!”
She stirred.
“Do you know—” he began, and then he stopped. “Don’t you know,” he went on, “can’t you see, that I love you?”