py in the moment, and
more than that, I was drugged with my dreams of the future. There were
days and days and days before us. This was but the threshold. And
then, with my ear to the ground, I heard the sound of an axe. The
sound of an axe in an untraveled wilderness!

I crowded closer to the ground. My blood beat in my temples, and I was
awake with every muscle. But I learned nothing. The sound of an axe
and then silence.

The woman looked at me. "Monsieur, is something wrong? Your face has
changed."

I stretched out my hand to her. "You must not grow fanciful. But
come. It is time to go home, madame."

I pushed her into the canoe in haste, but when we had once rounded the
turn of the bluff we floated home slowly. The light of late afternoon
is warm and yellow. It cradled the woman in lapping waves, and she sat
glowing and fragrant, and her eyes were mirrors of the light. I
dropped my paddle.

"Tell me more about yourself. Talk to me. Tell me of your childhood,"
I breathed.

She put out her hand. "Monsieur! Our contract!"

I let the canoe drift. "Madame; tell me the truth. Why do you hold
yourself so detached from me? Is it---- Madame, is it because you
fear that we shall learn to love each other,--to love against our
wills?"

She looked down. "It would be a tragedy if we did, monsieur."

"You would think it a tragedy to learn to love me?"

"It could be nothing else, monsieur."

The breeze took us where it willed. The mother-of-pearl shimmer of
evening was turning the headlands to mist, and the air smelled of cedar
and pine. Tiny waves lapped complainingly on the sides of our rocking
canoe. I leaned forward.

"Listen, madame, you know life. You know how little is often given
under the bond of marriage. You know how men and women live long lives
together though completely sundered in heart, and how others though
separated in life walk side by side in the spirit. As this is so, why
do you fear to see or know too much of me? Propinquity does not create
love."

Still she looked down. "Men say that it does, monsieur."

"Then why are so many marriages unhappy? No, madame, you know better
than that. And you know that if love should grow between us it would
sweep away your toy barriers like paper. Nearness or absence would not
affect it. Madame, let me have your hand."

"No, no! Monsieur, I do not know you."

"You shall know me better. Come, what is a hand? There.