"Oh, it's just nice tired." She lay still, comfortable, with open eyes staring up at the intense blue of the September sky seen through the wide-east limbs of pine and spruce. The little rill, scarce a finger thickness of water, crawled out lazily between the roots and trickled away. The girl was in empty-minded enjoyment of the luxury of complete relaxation of every muscle of her strong young body. The spring was noiseless, no leaf was astir in all the forest around them. The girl lay still, a part of the vast quietness.
John Penhallow stood a moment, and then said, "Good gracious! Leila, your eyes are blue." It was true. When big eyes are wide open staring up at the comrade blue of the deep blue sky, they win a certain beauty of added colour like little quiet lakelets under the azure sky when no wind disturbs their power of reflecting capture.
"Oh, John, and didn't you know my eyes were blue?" She spoke with languid interest in the fact he announced.
"But," he said, looking down at her as he stood, "they're so—so very blue."
"Oh, all the Greys have blue eyes."
He laughed gentle laughter and dropped on the pine-needles of the forest floor. The spring lay between them. He felt, as she did not, the charm of the stillness. He wanted to find words in which to put his desire for expression. She broke into his mood of imaginative seekings.
"How cold it is," she said, gathering the water in the cup of her hand, and then with both hands did better and got a refreshing drink.
"That makes a better cup," he said. "Let us follow the water to the river."
"It never gets there. It runs into Lonesome Man's swamp, and that's the end of him."
"Who, Lonesome Man or the spring? And who was Lonesome Man?"