She passed through stubble-wheat, disappeared in a pine-wood, and came out upon the Waveney towing-path. On the towing-path came Frankl to meet her.
He took her hand, holding his head sideward with a cajoling fondness, wearing the flowing caftan, and a velvet cap which widened out a-top, with puckers.
“Well, sweetheart...” he said.
“But, you know, I begged you not to use such words to me!”—from her.
“What, and I who am such a sweetheart of yours?”—his speech very foreign, yet slangily correct, being, in fact, all slang.
“No,” she said, “you spoke different at first, and that is why—But this must be the last, unless you say out clearly now what it is you mean—”
“Now, you are too hard. You know I am wild in love with you. And so are you with me—”
“I?”—with shrinking modesty in her under-looking eyes. “Oh, no—don't have any delusions like that about me, please! You said that you liked me: and as I am in the habit of speaking the truth myself, I thought that—perhaps—But my meeting you, to be frank with you, was for the sake of my brother”.
“Well, you are as candid as they make them,” he said, eyeing her with his mild eye. “But what's the matter with your brother? Hard up?”
“He's worried about something”. “He must have some harvest-money put away?”