“But the future!” he protested, feebly.
“That’s it!” she retorted. “For a river goddess there is no future. It’s all in the present for her, because she is eternal.”
They had walked clear up to the southernmost tip of the sandbar point. They could hear someone, perhaps a chorus of voices, singing on the whiskey boat at the Upper Landing. They could see the light of the boat’s windows. There they turned and started back down the sandbar, reaching the two boats moored side by side in the deadwater.
“Shall I help with those dishes to-night?” he asked.
“No, we’ll do them in the morning,” she replied without emphasis and as a matter of course, which left him unassisted in his obvious predicament.
“Well,” he drawled, after a time, “it’s about midnight. I must say a river goddess is—is beyond my most vivid dreams. I wonder––”
“What do you wonder?”
“If you’ll let me kiss you good-night now?”
“Yes,” she answered.
The stars twinkled as he put his arm around her and took the kiss which her lips gave—smiling.