For an instant she turned wide grave eyes upon him, then she went back to work, moving her hands deftly in and out of the basin.
"Molly, you could get along without me, couldn't you? If I had to go away for a while and could not come back, you would not be lonely with other friends to look after you. You have been a good little comrade to me; but I think our friendship was not meant to die of old age. You could get along without me, couldn't you—and Molly, you wouldn't forget me just at first?"
"No, Mister."
"I asked you not to call me Mister. Say Jim."
"No, Jim."
She had finished washing up. She went out into the dark and threw away the water. She found a second cloth, and began quickly to dry the cups he had lingered over.
"You aren't so slick to-night," she said. "You are pretty slick at this kind of thing for a man."
"I was round the run to-day. I came here from across the other side. The Pool is shrinking fast, Molly."
"The rains should be here, Christmas."
"It might be a pool of love, and all the drinks men take from it shrink its rim. Molly, are you as clever as you pretend at forgetting? If something happens, so that I come no more to the Pool—when you go alone to fish or when you go with others, will you remember that once or twice you fished with me?"