“I didn't either! I never said I loved him. I said I was under obligations to him; but they are as well repaid as they ever can be. I said I adored him, and I tell you I do! Give him what we owe him, both of us, in money, and send them away. If you'd seen as much of them as I have, you'd be tired of them, too. Please, please, David!”
“Yes,” said the Harvester, arising in a sudden tide of effulgent joy. “Yes, Girl, just as quickly as I can with decency. I——I'll send them on the lake, and I'll take care of you.”
“You won't read poetry to me?”
“I will not.”
“You won't moon at me?”
“No!”
“Then hurry! But have them take your boat. I am going to have the first ride in mine.”
“Indeed you are, and soon, too!” said the Harvester, marching up the hill as if he were leading hosts to battle.
He laid the Girl on the bed and covered her, and called Granny Moreland to sit beside her a few minutes. He went into the gold garden and proposed that the doctor and the nurse go rowing until supper time, and they went with alacrity. When they started he returned to the Girl and, sitting beside her, he told Granny to take a nap. Then he began to talk softly all about wild music, and how it was made, and what the different odours sweeping down the hill were, and when the red leaves would come, and the nuts rattle down, and the frost fairies enamel the windows, and soon she was sound asleep. Granny came back, and the Harvester walked around the lake shore to be alone a while and think quietly, for he was almost too dazed and bewildered for full realization.
As he softly followed the foot path he heard voices, and looking down, he saw the boat lying in the shade and beneath a big tree on the bank sat the doctor and the nurse. His arm was around her, and her head was on his shoulder; and she said very distinctly, “How long will it be until we can go without offending him?”