She laughed as she plunged her hand into the pocket of his coat.  “You used to have apples,” she complained, “or honeyshucks, at least—­now there’s only this.”

It was a worn little Latin text book, with frayed edges and soiled leaves.

“Give it to me,” he said quickly, but as he reached to take it from her the leaves fell open and she saw her own name written and rewritten across the crumpled pages.

She closed it and gave it back to him.

“You used that long ago,” she remarked carelessly; “very long ago.”

He replaced the book in his pocket, his steady eyes upon her.

“That’s what we get for rifling our neighbour’s pockets,” he said quietly, “and what we deserve.”

“No,” she returned with equal gravity, “sometimes we get apples—­or even peanuts, which we don’t deserve.”

He took no notice of the retort, but answered half-absently a former question.

“Yes; I used that long ago,” he said.  “You don’t think I would write your name ‘Genia’ now, do you?”

There was a dignity in his assumption of indifference—­in his absolute refusal to betray himself, which bore upon her conception of his manhood.  There was strength in his face, strength in his voice, strength in his quiet hand that lay upon her bridle.  She looked down on him with thoughtful eyes.

“If you wrote of me at all,” she returned.  “It is my name.”

“But I am not to call you by it.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” He laughed with a touch of bitterness, and held out his hand, fresh from the soil, hardened by the plough.  It was a powerful hand, brown and sinewy, with distorted knuckles and broken nails.  “Oh, not that,” he said.  “I don’t mean that.  That shows work, but I know you—­Genia—­you will tell me work is manly.  So it is, but is ignorance and poverty and—­and all the rest—­”

She leaned over and touched his hand lightly with her own.  “All the rest is courage and patience and pride,” she said; “as for the hand, it is a good hand, and I like it.”

He shook his head.

“Good enough in its place, I grant you,” he answered; “good enough in the fields, at the plough; or in the barnyard—­good enough even to keep this poor farm from collapse and to lift a few of its burdens—­but not good enough to—­”

He raised her hand lightly, regarding it with half-humorous eyes.

“How strong it is to be so light!” he added.

“Strong enough to hold fast to its friends,” returned Eugenia gravely.

He let it fall and looked into her face.

“May its friends be worthy ones,” he said.

She rode slowly through the wood, and he walked with his hand on her bridle.  The bright branches struck them as they passed, and sometimes he stopped to hold them aside for her.  His eyes followed her as she rode serenely above him, and he thought, in his folly, of the lady in the old romance who was, to the desire of her lovers, as “a distant flame, a sword afar off.”