"Hi, kid! You're late, according to my sundial," he said, smiling, wanting to josh her.
"Oh, our cook was slow fixing our lunch ... he got into some kind of dither. You know how cooks are! ... Just wait till you see what I've got here in the basket!"
They kissed, crooked their arms together, and strolled out of the village, along the Nonette, the sun breaking through onto the stream: they did not walk far: he knew a fishing spot by an old ruin: among the willows were regal chestnut and poplar and pine: brown leaves cluttered the path, most of them soggy; it was as if nobody had walked there since the days of Napoleon.
They cast from grassy embankments, from muddy flats, and from tiny sandy beaches. She was as clever with her casting as he: it was Wisconsin casting upstream versus New York casting downstream: what marvelous, marvelous flies, she exclaimed.
"I didn't know you're a pro at tieing."
Her face in the leafy sunlight was half-shadow.
Sunlight fell on the huge ruined castle as they fished below it, from blocks of masonry, thick, limestone slabs, some of them mossy and intricately carved. Orville's stone--the one he was casting from--bore a hooded falcon with Latin letters chiselled under its claws. They cast into a pool overhung by a three-story chunk of masonry, a dark green pool, free of snags or leaves, pool and castle merging. She dropped a fly inside a water window: with each flick of the fly the window disappeared, to reappear almost immediately. They didn't talk as they fished. A dove talked. A raven settled in a pine, intrigued by the fishermen. Downstream cattle waded, sucking softly, up to their knees in the water.
"Good boy," Jean exclaimed, as he got a strike. "Bring him in easy ... easy does it."
Releasing some line, he played his trout: the reel's spinning thrilled him: the line sliced across the water, forming a ragged oval: he was in New York again.
Jeannette longed to sign out, her job forsaken: she longed to keep him forever.