“Goodfellow,” said Tom. “She’s a boat.”
Audry seemed relieved. But she did not forget to be argumentative. “You can’t say that you love a boat,” she said.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly talking about love,” said Tom.
For a moment this seemed to silence her. Then she rose to the surface with the kind of analytical talk that always edified poor Tom. “You can’t say that you’re really fond of a thing that can’t offer any response. You can’t really say that you’re fond of a boat. You might say you like a boat.”
Tom seemed greatly impressed. “Well, I like that boat, you can bet,” he said.
So then he told her about his only sweetheart, the Goodfellow. They sat on a rock some yards short of the first crevice and she listened to his recital of the charms of the gay little cruiser which it seemed he was permitted to like but not to love. He had never known before that there was anything technical about one’s feelings.
And the distant Goodfellow was Tom’s friend in this, that she made it easy for him to tell all that was on his mind. He told Audry he had first gone to inspect the boat admitting that it was a crazy thing to do. “Because I’m no more in her class than I am in yours,” he added.
He was soon telling her how he met old Caleb Dyker and of how they talked at the little wayside spring, and of the old man’s story. Her interest was caught and her great brown eyes, sobered to an intense listening expression, were very rich and beautiful. And she listened to him without comment, which was unusual. He had really never seen her listen before, and he was stirred to something like eloquence in his narrative by the compliment of her attentive silence. If he was confused at all it was not because of his usual awkwardness of speech, but because her eyes were upon him.
And soon he had told her the whole story, including the recent happenings on the mountain which identified Whalen with Anson Dyker. Tom had never before seen her so soberly receptive. She had never looked at him so long and so steadily. He found that her big, lustrous, listening eyes were quite as wonderful as her intelligence. Well not quite, but almost....