Her voice set out to Plashers Mead, no louder than a moth's wing; and, turning away from the warm May night, Pauline went back to bed and fell asleep on the happy contemplation of a love that between them was exactly equal.
The floods went down rapidly during the week; green Summer flung her wreaths before her: the cuckoo sang out of tune and other birds more rarely: chestnut-blossom powdered the grass: and the pinks were breaking all along the Rectory borders. These were days when not to idle down the river would have been a slight upon the season. So Pauline and Guy, with their two afternoons a week, which were not long in becoming four, spent all their time in the canoe. The Rectory punt could only be used on the mill-stream; and Pauline rejoiced, if somewhat guiltily, that they could not invite either of her sisters to accompany them. She and Guy had now so much to say to each other, every day more it seemed, that it was impossible any longer not to wish to be alone.
"Margaret says we are becoming selfish, are we?" she asked, dragging her fingers through the water and perceiving the world through ranks of fleurs-de-lys.
Guy from where in the stern he sat hunched over his paddle asked in what way they were supposed to be selfish.
"Well, it is true that I'm dreadfully absent-minded all the time. You know, I can't think about anything but you. Then, you see, we used always to invite Margaret to be with us, and now we hurry away in the canoe from everybody."
"One would think we spent all our time together," said Guy. "Instead of barely four hours a week."
"Oh, Guy darling, it's more than that. This is the fourth afternoon running that we've been together; and we weren't back yesterday till dinner-time."
Guy put a finger to his mouth.
"Hush! We're coming to the bend in the river that flows round the place we first met," he whispered. "Hush! if we talk about other people, it will be disenchanted."
He swung the canoe under the bushes, tied it to a hawthorn bough and declared triumphantly, as they climbed ashore up the steep bank, that here was practically a desert island. Then they went to the narrow entrance and gazed over the meadows which in this sacred time of growing grass really were impassable as the sea.