As the rhythmic oars plopped and creaked, as she floated on an unreality of delicate gray over which the sunset was poured out thin, the irritation of Cy and Maud slipped away.  Erik smiled at her proudly.  She considered him—­coatless, in white thin shirt.  She was conscious of his male differentness, of his flat masculine sides, his thin thighs, his easy rowing.  They talked of the library, of the movies.  He hummed and she softly sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”  A breeze shivered across the agate lake.  The wrinkled water was like armor damascened and polished.  The breeze flowed round the boat in a chill current.  Carol drew the collar of her middy blouse over her bare throat.

“Getting cold.  Afraid we’ll have to go back,” she said.

“Let’s not go back to them yet.  They’ll be cutting up.  Let’s keep along the shore.”

“But you enjoy the ‘cutting up!’ Maud and you had a beautiful time.”

“Why!  We just walked on the shore and talked about fishing!”

She was relieved, and apologetic to her friend Maud.  “Of course.  I was joking.”

“I’ll tell you!  Let’s land here and sit on the shore—­that bunch of hazel-brush will shelter us from the wind—­and watch the sunset.  It’s like melted lead.  Just a short while!  We don’t want to go back and listen to them!”

“No, but——­” She said nothing while he sped ashore.  The keel clashed on the stones.  He stood on the forward seat, holding out his hand.  They were alone, in the ripple-lapping silence.  She rose slowly, slowly stepped over the water in the bottom of the old boat.  She took his hand confidently.  Unspeaking they sat on a bleached log, in a russet twilight which hinted of autumn.  Linden leaves fluttered about them.

“I wish——­Are you cold now?” he whispered.

“A little.”  She shivered.  But it was not with cold.

“I wish we could curl up in the leaves there, covered all up, and lie looking out at the dark.”

“I wish we could.”  As though it was comfortably understood that he did not mean to be taken seriously.

“Like what all the poets say—­brown nymph and faun.”

“No.  I can’t be a nymph any more.  Too old——­Erik, am I old?  Am I faded and small-towny?”

“Why, you’re the youngest——­Your eyes are like a girl’s.  They’re so—­well, I mean, like you believed everything.  Even if you do teach me, I feel a thousand years older than you, instead of maybe a year younger.”

“Four or five years younger!”

“Anyway, your eyes are so innocent and your cheeks so soft——­Damn it, it makes me want to cry, somehow, you’re so defenseless; and I want to protect you and——­There’s nothing to protect you against!”

“Am I young?  Am I?  Honestly?  Truly?” She betrayed for a moment the childish, mock-imploring tone that comes into the voice of the most serious woman when an agreeable man treats her as a girl; the childish tone and childish pursed-up lips and shy lift of the cheek.