“Very long ago,” she assented, with her serene gravity. “Two months, is it not?”
“Or years. Or centuries. It does n’t seem to matter.”
“I am glad they sang that to-night. For us,” she concluded, after the briefest of pauses.
He put his hand over hers, which rested on the stone coping of the bridge. She did not stir nor speak. But it was his hand, not hers, that trembled. A heavy rowboat came lumbering down the reach, two students at the oars.
“Politics for me,” said one confidently. “We’re going to run the country from this end now. I’m for Mart Embree’s band-wagon.”
“Too dull,” said another. “Gimme a touch of Nuh York.”
“It’s a rough world for poor, lost lambs like us to be spilled into, anyway,” boomed a resonant bass from the stern seat, and their laughter died away around the bend of the island.
Marcia Ames freed her fingers from her companion’s clasp.
“Jem,” she said.
“I love you,” he said.