He was awake at six and sprang out of bed to see what kind of day it was. The sun was already high over the tops of the buildings to the east, the sky was fleckless, and the empty Park was beaming. His anxiety was relieved. He dressed as slowly as possible in order to kill time, taking care to make no sound that might awaken Charley in the next room.
He was not prepared to make explanations just then.
Notwithstanding all his care he was ready a whole hour too soon, an hour that promised to be endless, for he was completely at a loss what to do with himself; couldn't apply his mind to anything; couldn't sit still. Finally he stole down-stairs, sending his love silently through her door as he passed, and started circumnavigating the Park.
He was subconsciously aware of the splendour of the morning, but saw little of what actually met his eyes. He was too busy with the happenings of the night before. A nasty little doubt tormented him. He knew he was slightly insane; it was not that; he gloried in his state and pitied the dull clods who had not fire in their breasts to drive them mad. But here was the rub; would not these same clods have laughed at him had they known of the oath he had taken—would not he have laughed himself yesterday?
It was carried on inside him like an argument; on the one hand the enamoured young man who insisted that the relationship between brother and sister was a holy and beautiful one, on the other hand the matter-of-fact one who said it was all damn nonsense; that a man and woman, free, unattached and not bound by the ties of consanguinity were not intended to be brother and sister. Such arguments have no end. The thought of Charley troubled him most; he had always taken a slightly superior attitude towards Charley's sentimentality. What a chance for Charley to get back at him if he learned of this!
At five minutes to eight, having looked at his watch fifty times or so, he ventured back into the house, and tapped at Corinna's door. "She's bound to be late anyhow," he thought, "no harm to hurry her up a little."
But no, she was hatted, gloved and waiting just inside the door. This little fact won his gratitude surprisingly; a man does not expect it of a woman. In the sunlight they took in each other anew. What Corinna thought did not appear, but Evan was freshly delighted. She was an out-of-doors girl it appeared; the morning became her like a shining garment. He forgot the argument; it was sufficient to be with her, to laugh with her, to be ravished by the dusky, velvety tones of her voice.
Of the hours that followed it is unnecessary to speak in detail. It was one long rhapsody, and rhapsodies are apt to be a little tiresome to those other than the rhapsodists. Everybody has known such hours for themselves—or if they have not they are unfortunate. They breakfasted frugally—there is a delicious intimacy in breakfast no other meal knows, and then decided on Staten Island. Half an hour later they were voyaging down the bay, and in an hour were in the woods.
Corinna was inexorable on the question of eleven o'clock, and to Evan it seemed as if they had no sooner got there than they had to turn back again. Evan got sore, and the pleasure of the return journey was a little dimmed, though there is a kind of sweetness in these little tiffs too. Anybody seeing their eyes on each other, Corinna's as well as Evan's, would have known they were no brother and sister, but they still kept up the fiction.
As they neared home she said: "Do you mind if I go in alone?"