"Nothing that we can help. But we can take the straight course just the same. We 'll turn aside for the flowers and little trees."
"And nothing else."
"Nothing else," she agreed.
He led the way, his shoulders drooping a trifle and his step not so light as her step. She could have trodden upon violets without harm to them. Still, he marched with a sturdiness that was commendable considering the load he carried. They made their way down through the orchard and over the sun-flecked grass until they encountered their first obstacle. It was a stone wall made out of gray field rocks. He gave her his hand. The fingers clung to his like a child's fingers. Their warm, soft caress went to his head like wine so that for a moment, as she stood near him, it was a question whether or not he could resist drawing her into his arms which throbbed for her. He spoke nothing; she spoke nothing. There was no boldness in her, nor any struggle either. With her head thrown back a little, she waited. So for ten seconds they stood, neither moving. Then he motioned and she jumped lightly to the ground. He led the way and they took up their march again, though once behind him she found it difficult to catch her breath again.
They moved on down the green hill, across a field, ankle deep in new grass, into the heavier green of the low lands. So they came to a meadow brook running shallow over a pebbly bottom but some five yards wide. There were no stepping stones, but a hundred rods to the right a small foot bridge crossed.
Again she waited to see what he would do, while he waited to see what he would dare. With his heart aching in his throat he challenged himself. It was asking superhuman strength of him to venture his lips so near the velvet sheen of her cheeks—he who so soon was going out with a hungry heart. Her arms would be about his neck—that would be something to remember at the end—her arms about his neck. He knew that she expected him in even so slight a thing as this to keep true to his undertaking and march straight ahead. She realized nothing of the struggle which checked him. Tragic triviality—the problem of how to cross a brook with a maid! There was but one way even when it involved the mauling of a man's heart.
He held out his arms to her and she came to them quite as simply as she had taken his proffered hand at the wall. He placed one arm about her waist and another about her skirts. She clasped her fingers behind his neck and sat up with as little embarrassment as though riding upon a ferry.
He lifted her and the act to him was as though he had condensed a thousand kisses into one. He walked slowly. This was a brief span into which to crowd a lifetime of love. In the middle of the brook he stopped—just a second, to mark the beginning of the end—and then went on again. When he set her down he was breathing heavily. She had become a bit self-conscious. Her cheeks were aflame.
Her low black shoes with their big silk bows tied pertly below her trim ankles were a goodly sight to see against the green grass as he might have observed had he looked at them at all. But he did n't. He wiped his moist forehead as though, instead of a dainty armful, she had been a burden.
She shook the wrinkles from her skirt and looked up at him laughing. Then she frowned.