“Would you really like to curl in the leaves and watch the stars swing by overhead?”
“I think it's rather better to be sitting here!” He twined his fingers with hers. “And Erik, we must go back.”
“Why?”
“It's somewhat late to outline all the history of social custom!”
“I know. We must. Are you glad we ran away though?”
“Yes.” She was quiet, perfectly simple. But she rose.
He circled her waist with a brusque arm. She did not resist. She did not care. He was neither a peasant tailor, a potential artist, a social complication, nor a peril. He was himself, and in him, in the personality flowing from him, she was unreasoningly content. In his nearness she caught a new view of his head; the last light brought out the planes of his neck, his flat ruddied cheeks, the side of his nose, the depression of his temples. Not as coy or uneasy lovers but as companions they walked to the boat, and he lifted her up on the prow.
She began to talk intently, as he rowed: “Erik, you've got to work! You ought to be a personage. You're robbed of your kingdom. Fight for it! Take one of these correspondence courses in drawing—they mayn't be any good in themselves, but they'll make you try to draw and——”
As they reached the picnic ground she perceived that it was dark, that they had been gone for a long time.
“What will they say?” she wondered.