“Bob St. Clare told me after I came home by way of apology for your bad manners in so shamefully neglecting a young woman from your own state.”
“I ’ll make amends, now.”
“Oh! I’m not suffering from loneliness as I did then. You know Bob put us up to inviting you to deliver the address. He said you were the only orator in North Carolina.”
“Bob’s the best friend I ever had. We entered college together at fifteen, and became inseparable friends.”
He helped her from the carriage and she ran lightly up the high stoop.
“Now come here and look at the view of the river before Papa comes and begins to talk about the tremendous water power in the falls.”
He followed her to the end of the long porch overlooking the river. Behind the house the hill abruptly plunged downward to the waters’ edge in a mountainous cliff. The river wound around this cliff past the house, emerging into a valley where it described a graceful curve almost doubling on itself and rolled softly away amid green overhanging willows and towering sycamores till lost in the distance toward the blue spurs of King’s Mountain.
“A glorious view!” said Gaston, looking long and lovingly at the silver surface of the river.
“Do you love the water, Mr. Gaston?”
“Passionately. I was born among the hills, but the first time I saw the ocean sweeping over five miles of sand reefs and breaking in white thundering spray at my feet, I stood there on a sand dune on our wild coast and gazed entranced for an hour without moving. Of all the things God ever made on this earth I love the waters of the sea, and all moving water suggests it to me. That river says, I must hurry to the sea!”