“Well, Eve, have you not done with me?” I sighed and would not look at her, though she stood before me.
“No, I have not,” she said. “I should laugh if I were not so angry. Look at me.”
I stood and looked down at her, an instant but no more. I could not, for I should have choked.
“Eve, Eve,” I cried, “have you no mercy? Must the Rich destroy the playthings that they weary of?”
“Adam,” she said, “you have a duty yet. Do not shirk it. A fisherman must not shirk his duty.”
“I am but a drowned fisherman,” I replied. “But what a drowned man may do, I will do.”
“You promised to be my good friend,” she said. “So come back with me along the shore.”
So we went down the steep path and side by side along the shore, where the water lapped high. And we came to our bank, where the pebbles shone in the sun, and there Eve sat her down.
“Sit beside me, Adam.”
And down I sat, as wretched as man was ever, and I looked into the water that covered my clam beds. I doubted I should have heart to dig in those beds again.