"No."
"And you'll look all around you for snakes before you take the next step, won't you?" she insisted.
He promised, thrilled by her frank solicitude.
A little way up the path he paused, looked around, and saw her standing there looking after him.
"You're sure you'll be all right?" he called back to her.
"Yes. Are you sure you will be?"
"Oh, yes!"
They made two quick gestures of adieu, and he resumed the path. Presently he turned again. She was still standing there looking after him. They made two gestures of farewell and he resumed the path. After a while he looked back. She—but what's the use!
When he came to the spot marked for destruction, he laid down his paraphernalia, seized the crow-bar, and began to dig, scarcely conscious of what he was about because he had become so deeply absorbed in other things—in an-other thing—a human one with red hair and otherwise divinely endowed.
The swift onset of this heavenly emotion was[309] making him giddy—or perhaps it was unaccustomed manual labor under a semi-tropical sun.