"Yes, I have come," he said. "Ah, how I have been cursing this rain—may the saints forgive me!—but I cared not, and cursed."
Suleima looked at him a moment.
"Why, how smart you are!" she said. "Is it the Greek use that a man goes fishing in his best clothes? Oh, my clean fustanella!" she cried, looking sideways on him.
Mitsos smiled. The best clothes had been a good thought, in spite of a momentary confusion.
"Hush!" he whispered, "we will talk in the boat. I will hold the ladder. There, it is quite steady."
The girl stepped lightly down the rungs, and Mitsos, directing her to sit still, threw the ladder and rope back and let himself down onto the side of the boat.
"Where shall we go to-night?" he asked.
The girl laughed gently—the echo, as it were, of a laugh.
"Oh, out, out to sea," she said; "right away from this horrible place. Where shall I sit?"
Mitsos took the pillow out of the net and put it for her at the stern of the boat.