“Hot to-morrow,” he said.
“Yes.”
Neither heard the inconsequential words with which they veiled their thoughts. He was profoundly penetrated by the weirdness of the spectacle before him, feeling in himself, too, a consuming heat to burn up places and experiences, a need of emotion and progress. She looked in awe, sensing something ominous in the witchcraft of the sky, something personal to her and the coming months.
“It makes you sad to leave here,” he said presently.
“Yes; I’m that way,” she said apologetically. “Every tree here is a friend.”
“We have been happy—rarely happy.” She took his hand and laid it against her cheek. “Whatever I do, you will have done it, Inga,” he said, with a note of emotion. “And there were moments—yes, even at the time we were pledging ourselves to each other, even in the train afterward when we could not talk to each other, you remember—when I wondered how it would turn out—if, at first, it would not be a struggle between us. Curious what thoughts come to you at the queerest times! I suppose you were thinking something like that too.”
“I was wondering,” she said evasively.
“You have never seen the sea?” he said irrelevantly.
“Never, never, except as a small child, and I can’t remember well.”
“You will be swept away by it,” he said, his imagination on what was coming.