She seemed to him magnificently beautiful.
"I dare say they'll spoil you before I come back," he said, "or somebody else will."
She gave him a deliberate glance from her dark eyes, and then threw back her head and laughed. He could see the heaving of her breast. She laughed again—a fresh, merry laugh—and then he tried to laugh too, thinking of the foolish thing he had said.
"But if there are plenty of girls up there," she said, slyly glancing under her long lashes, "and they're so very wonderful, maybe you'll be getting married before you come home again?"
"Maybe so," he said quietly, and looked vacantly aside.
There was a pause. Then a sharp snap or two broke the silence and recalled him to the maiden by his side. She was only breaking up the twig she had carried.
There was another pause, in which he could hear the rippling of the river and the leaping of a fish. The heifers were munching the grass by the roadside a little ahead.
"I must go now," she said, coldly, "or they'll be out seeking me."
"I'll walk with you as far as Lague—it's dark," he said.
"No, no, you must not!" she cried, and fumbling the loose fold about her throat she turned to go.