Ten minutes before he had proposed to her and had been rejected.
It was not the first time, but he had been very much more hopeful than on the other occasions.
The air was softly, embracingly warm that evening. Together they had watched the lengthening shadows creep out across the old river. And it was spring still, which makes a difference. There is something in the year's youth—the sap is rising in the plants—something there is, anyway, beyond the sentimentality of the poets. And overhead was the great yellow lantern gleaming at them through the branches with ironic approval.
But, in spite of everything, she had shaken her head and all he received was the maddening assurance that she "liked" him.
"I shall never marry," she had concluded. "Never. You know why."
"Yes, I know," the man said miserably. "Carruthers."
And so he was looking out moodily, almost savagely, across the water when the temptation came to him.
He would not have minded quite so much if Carruthers had been alive, but he was dead and slept in the now silent Salient where a little cross marked his bed. Alive one could have striven against him, striven desperately, although Carruthers had always been rather a proposition. But now it seemed hopeless—a man cannot strive with a memory. It was not fair—so the man's thoughts were running. He had shared Carruthers' risks, although he had come back. This persistent and exclusive devotion to a man who would never return to her was morbid. Suddenly, his mind was made up.
"Olive," he said.
"Yes," she replied quietly.