She ventured, "You mean, maybe, that I'm so shaken up by the little surface waves, chopping back and forth, that I don't feel the big current."
"It's there. Whether you feel it or not," he made final answer to her doubt.
She murmured, "I wonder if there is anything in that silly, old-fashioned notion that men are stronger than women, and that women must lean on men's strength, to live?"
"Everybody's got to lean on his own strength, sooner or later," he told her with a touch of grimness.
"You just won't be romantic!" she cried admiringly.
"I really love you, Marise," he answered profoundly; and on this rock-like assurance she sank down with a long breath of trust.
The sun was dipping into the sea now, emblazoning the sky with a last flaming half-circle of pure color, but the light had left the dusky edges of the world. Already the far mountains were dimmed, and the plain, passing from one deep twilight color to another more somber, was quietly sinking into darkness as into the strong loving arms of ultimate dissolution.
The girl spoke in a dreamy twilight tone, "Neale dear, this is not a romantic idea . . . honestly, I do wish we could both die right here and never go down to the plain any more. Don't you feel that? Not at all?"
His voice rang out, resonant and harsh as a bugle-note, "No, I do not, not at all, not for a single moment. I've too much ahead of me to feel that. And so have you!"