"I was in hopes you'd change your mind."
"I can't dance those new-fangled figures."
"O, you'd catch on in a jiffy. You should have gone out more."
They moved down the hill to the beach road, and as they walked Harris talked, talked against time, he would have said. They strolled on past the small boys fishing, past other low-voiced couples, out into comparative solitude where the farms began. She knew what was coming but she could not stop, could not then turn back.
They came at last to a grassy little knoll which looked out upon the lake, and there he laughingly spread out his handkerchief for her.
"Sit here, my liege lady!"
It was red clover, and its powerful fragrance swept upon her with a vision of the hay-field at home.
Harris lay down below her so that he could see her face, and the look in his eyes made her shiver again. Nothing so beautiful and powerful and pagan-free had come to her since that day when she danced with Carl beneath the dappling leaves, when woman's passion first stirred within her. The sailing clouds, the clicking insects, the smell of leaves and flowers all strove on the side of the lover. It was immemorial, this scene, this impulse.
"Well, Rose, this is our last day at school, and what I want to know is this, is it the last we shall see of each other?"
She made an effort and answered: