He came out on the porch and sat down beside her. Neither spoke. He knew she was no longer fooled.
“Jeannette, I can read and write.”
“Write something so I can see; you may be fooling me.”
He felt in his pockets for a scrap of paper but found nothing. Then he opened a card case and taking out his card, wrote on the back a few words.
She went into the light and read: “Chi si marita alla svelta si pente adagio. William L. Blair.”
She turned the card over and read “William Lees Blair.” She called out the door, “Good night, Captain William Lees Blair;” and went to her room.
[pg 64] He did not see her again until the next afternoon. He heard her singing on Big Rock, and walking down to the creek, followed up the bank until he came to the foot of the rock. It was very steep on that side, almost unscalable. She heard him climbing up. His hat fell off; a moment later his bare red head peeped above the surface, then his smiling, ruddy face rose slowly over the edge, much as she had seen the full red moon rise over the edge of the cliff that capped her mountain.
“Jeannette, really, I can read.”
“Let me see.”
And he wrote on another card: