"Are you really in earnest, Mr. Hawes?"
"Yes, I mean every word of it. Wouldn't you—I mean, wouldn't the woman who had persisted in having her way—wouldn't she like a home up there?"
In her voice was the musical cluck that so often had charmed me. "She would be happy anywhere with the man who had permitted her to have her way, and I know that she would be delighted to live up there. And you—I mean the man—-wouldn't have any of the trees cut down, would he?"
"Not one. He would build the house in that open place."
"Charming," she said. "How sweet a religion could be made of a life up there, with the river and the hills and the island—beautiful."
"Guinea, I wish you would tell me something. Did you ever really love—him?"
"When I have come to you as I told you I would come, you will not have to ask me anything."
"But can you give me some idea as to how long I may have to wait? My confidence in you is complete, but you must know that to wait is painful. Suppose that a certain something that you are waiting for—suppose that nothing should come of it? What then?"
"No matter what takes place, I will come to you. I know that it must appear foolish, I know that I am but vague in what I try to make you understand, but—you will wait a while longer, won't you?"
Her voice was so pleading, her manner was so full of distress, that I hastened to tell her that I would wait no matter how long she might deign to hold me off, and that never again could she find cause to reprove my impatience. She thanked me with a smile and with many an endearing word, and onward we went, the boats passing us, the songs of lovers reaching us from above and below. We landed and climbed the bluff, and I selected the exact spot whereon the house was to be; we loitered in the shade and counted the minutes as they flew away like pigeons from a trap, but we could not shoot them and bring them back; so they were gone, and it was soon time for us to go, for the light of the sun was weakening. Down the river we went, singing "Juanita," she rippling the water with her hand, I half-hearted in my rowing, dreamily wishing that the train might leave me.