“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that!... Did I—did I talk—foolishly?”
“Rather. Seemed to think you were swimming—or fighting—I couldn’t be sure which. Sometimes you seemed to be doing both.”
“Oh!” With a cold chill the events of the day came back upon her. That struggle in the water; it came to her now like a bad dream out of the long, long past. How much had she said? How much would she have given to know what she said? She felt herself recounting events....
Presently she pulled herself up with a start. She must not let him think her moody.
“Well, if we MUST enjoy each other’s company, we may as well do so companionably,” she said, with an effort at gaiety. “Let us talk. Tell me about yourself.”
“First things first,” he parried.
“Oh, I’ve nothing to tell. My life has been very unromantic. A few years at school, and the rest of it on the range. A very every-day kind of existence.”
“I think it’s the ‘every-day kind of existence’ that IS romantic,” he returned. “It is a great mistake to think of romance as belonging to other times and other places. Even the most commonplace person has experienced romance enough for a dozen books. Quite possibly he has not recognized the romance, but it was there. The trouble is that with our limited sense of humor, what we think of as romance in other people’s lives becomes tragedy in our own.”
How much DID he know?... “Yes,” she said, “I suppose that is so.”
“I know it is so,” he went on. “If we could read the thoughts—know the experiences—of those nearest to us, we would never need to look out of our own circles for either romance or tragedy. But it is as well that we can’t. Take the experience of to-day, for example. I admit it has not been a commonplace day, and yet it has not been altogether extraordinary. Think of the experiences we have been through just this day, and how, if they were presented in fiction they would be romantic, almost unbelievable. And here we are at the close, sitting on a rock, matter-of-fact people in a matter-of-fact world, accepting everything as commonplace and unexceptional.”