"Now they can't see," said Eve. "Can they?"
I smiled and shook my head.
"And it wouldn't make any difference," Eve pursued, "if they could. Would it? Say quickly, Adam," she cried, shaking our clasped hands in mid air. "You are too slow. Would it?"
"No, Eve," I answered, smiling again. Indeed I had not stopped smiling. "But we might excite envy in their breasts, which is a sin we pray to be delivered from."
"Oh, well," she said, "there is nobody to see but Captain Fergus, and he has not been married long. I love this place, Adam. Do you remember—here were your pebbles, in the sod just here. And here I sat when you warned me not to spot my dress,—when I took you for a fisherman,—and you took me for a governess."
"Did you think I could forget?"
And we fell silent, and presently Eve would have me row her out upon the water, for it was as warm as summer. And, that pleasing me,—although it would have been enough for me that I was pleasing Eve,—we wandered to Old Goodwin's stone pier, and took one of his boats, and rowed out. And I paddled about, having nowhere in particular to go, and we found ourselves near the great white schooner, almost under her stern; and I looked up, and read her name, Arcadia, and there was Captain Fergus, in his faded old blue cap, looking down at us over the rail. His face was bronzed by sun and wind and rain, and there were little wrinkles about his eyes after the manner of your seafaring men, and his eyes were of a deep blue—the blue of the deep sea. They made me think of Old Goodwin's eyes, although Old Goodwin's eyes are not blue.
He touched his cap. "Won't you come aboard?" he asked in a deep voice which made one think of rolling seas and fresh winds and bellying sails.
"Thank you." I hesitated, and looked at Eve, but she did not wait for me.