We did not speak to each other for some time after we were out of doors together. I took her arm in gentle manner and led her steps away from the tavern. We could see its lights in the early dusk, and I wanted to keep away from lights for a time.
I was glad the autumn dusk had settled—a sliver of new moon was a comforting sight for a lover.
“I guess neither of us knows very well how to talk about love, Kama,” I told her, hobbling along beside her as best I could. The judge’s orchard was shaded by the evening’s gloom, and when I turned down there she did not resist.
“I’m sure I’m mighty awkward about making love,” I went on, “but God knows I want to learn how.”
“Why do you think I can do any better as a tutor in love than as an attorney?” she asked.
“Because I’ll be such a willing pupil, dear.”
“I heard you inform Miss Kingsley with a great deal of earnestness just now that you have found out what real love is like.” She couldn’t keep all the naughty teasing from her tone, though her voice trembled. “Who is the fortunate one?”
Then I caught her to me, and with her warm cheek close to mine and her lips near and never denying caresses, I told her and I convinced her.
“I think,” she admitted, after a long time and after many words there in the blessed shadows, “that you are entitled to your diploma, Ross. You are showing me that you know more than your tutor. But is there a woman who is not jealous when she is in love? Here!” She pressed into my hand a little packet; it contained the three rings. I drew her along to the cleft tree. I dropped them into the hollow.
“One for fancy, one for folly, one for the freakish dreams of boyhood!” I told her. “All buried! Come back to the tavern, precious girl! I want you to tell Dodovah Vose how to decorate the parlor for the wedding!”