He smiled. "You have begun with the command in Genesis, instructing the Earth to bear, and so on, but I should go one step back in the epic of Creation and say, let us live by the waters where they are 'gathered together unto one place.' We must have a great body of water near us and, we must have rain."
"Yes, in summer, rain; in winter, snow. I want the four seasons."
"I don't know where we are to find four, that is an absolutely complete four," he said. "We can rarely boast a spring in its entirety. It seems to exist only in the dreams of the poets, or in England. I saw a real spring in England. But there are some pretty fair imitations of it, I'll admit, in many of our states, notably, for instance, in Michigan and Wisconsin." Adroit, time-serving man!
"Well, we can get along without an elaborate spring," she laughed, "if we can have a June, a real June, once a year."
And so they considered deliciously until it was decided that "God's country" for them, implied a green country in summer and a white country in winter, with vast water near, if possible, and that from Maine to the Western Mountains it existed, all without prejudice to other "God's countries" for other mortals elsewhere born.
Straightforward, reckless, trusting confidence, was it not, this conversation between the man and woman thus rejoined, but he was of the sort who do things, and she was a woman given fully. Besides—though in a world which ended—they had dreamed before.
This matter of great importance settled, there was silence for a time. He looked upon her with devouring eyes. At last he broke forth:
"Now I want to draw my breath, but find it difficult. I am going to lean back and study you and try to think of the world as it has rearranged itself. I have not grasped it all yet. It is odd; it is great! I have you and you can't get away from me now! It is wonderful, this sudden possession, the possession rightly, even in all the conventional, in all that the weakling centuries dictate. No wonder that I am dazed. Ever as the world revolves, come new revelations of thought and of all existence. I dreamed that I knew things, but I didn't.
"What are you going to do about it, dearie? My heart is like a kettle in which everything is boiling, and it is foaming over the top with love for you. Can you not help me? What are you going to put into the kettle to stop this unseemly boiling? I don't want you to pour in cold water, or take the kettle off, or put the fire out. Oh, well, let 'er boil! I am afraid, my dear, that you will have to take care of me most of the time. I'm irresponsible.
"Let us talk about something practical, my dear woman," he rambled on. "You look at me with your great eyes, and you know what the inevitable is. You know that you and I must face the world and all its dragons together after this. What fun it will be! Have you any suggestions to make? By the way, I like the trick of the top of your garments, the arrangement about your throat. You have tact and taste, and sense, my dear, yet you lack a mountain of judgment and discretion. You have intrusted yourself to me, reckless person! Now, cut loose and tell me something. I think that expression 'cut loose' is one of the best of all our Americanisms. Tell me something."