It was in the afternoon and they were together down by the little brook, in the shade of the willows, where the stream, running lazily under the patches of light and shade, murmured drowsily—seeming more than half asleep. She was weaving an old time daisy chain from a great armful that he had helped her gather on their way to the cool retreat. A bit of fancy work that she had brought from the house lay neglected near his hat, which the man, boy like, had cast aside. He was industriously fishing for minnows, with a slender twig of willow for a rod, a line of thread from her sewing, and a pin, that she had found for him, fashioned into a hook. With a pointed stick he had dug among the roots of the old tree for bait—securing one, tiny, thin, worm and rejoicing gleefully at his success. For a long time neither had said a word; but the woman, her white fingers busy with the daisies in her lap, had several times looked up from her pretty task to smile at the man who was so intensely and seriously interested in his childish sport.
"Gee! I nearly got one that time!" He exclaimed with boyish triumph and disappointment in his voice.
The woman laughed merrily. "One would think," she said, "that your fame in life depended upon your catching one of those poor little fish. What do you suppose your dear, devoted, public would say if they could see you now?"
The man grunted his disapproval. "I came out here to get away from said public," he retorted. "Why do you drag 'em into our paradise?"
At his words, a warm color crept into the woman's face, and, bending low over the daisies in her lap, she did not answer.
Lifting the improvised fishing tackle of his childhood and looking at it critically the man said: "I suppose, now, that if this rod were a split bamboo, and this thread were braided silk, and this pin with its wiggly piece of worm were a "Silver Doctor" or a "Queen of the Waters" or a "Dusty Miller" or a "Brown Hackle"; and if this stream were an educated stream, with educated trout; and the house up there were a club house; and your dear old aunt, who is watching to see that I don't eat you, were a lot of whist playing old men; I suppose you would think it all right and a proper sport for a man. But for me—I can't see much difference—except that, just now—" he carefully lowered his hook into the water—"just now, I prefer this. In fact," he added meditatively, "I would rather do this than anything else in the world."
The color in the woman's face deepened.
After a little, he looked cautiously around to see her bending over the daisy chain. A moment later, under pretense of examining his bait, he stole another look. Then, in spite of his declaration, he abandoned his sport to stretch himself full length on the ground at her side.
She did not look at him but bent her head low over the wealth of white and gold blossoms in her lap; and the man noticed, with an odd feeling of pleasure, the beautiful curve of her white neck from the soft brown hair to the edge of her dress low on the shoulder. Then, with a sly smile, as the boy of their Yesterdays might have done, he stealthily raised the slender willow twig and with the tip cautiously attempted to lift the thin golden chain that she always wore loosely about her throat with the locket or pendant concealed by her dress.
She clutched the chain with a frightened gesture and a little exclamation. "You must not—you must not do that."