"Ugh!" she shuddered; "always waiting for something to die! How can a man live here, knowing that?"
"I don't propose to die out-doors," said Haltren, laughing.
Again the huge shadow swept between them; she shrank back with a little gesture of repugnance. Perhaps she was thinking of her nearness to death in the inlet.
"Are there alligators here, too?" she asked.
"Some. They don't trouble a man who keeps his eyes open."
"A nice country you live in!" she said, disdainfully.
"It is one kind of country. There is good shooting."
"Sunshine all the year round. I have a house covered with scented things and buried in orange-trees. It is very beautiful. A little lonely at times--one can't have Fifth Avenue and pick one's own grape-fruit from the veranda, too."
A silence fell between them; through the late afternoon stillness they heard the splash! splash! of leaping mullet in the lagoon. Suddenly a crimson-throated humming-bird whirred past, hung vibrating before a flowering creeper, then darted away.
"Spring is drifting northward," he said. "To-morrow will be Easter Day--Pasque Florida."
She rose, saying, carelessly, "I was not thinking of to-morrow; I was thinking of to-day," and, walking across the cleared circle, she picked up her paddle. He followed her, and she looked around gayly, swinging the paddle to her shoulder.
"You said you were thinking of to-day," he stammered. "It--it is our anniversary."
She raised her eyebrows. "I am astonished that you remembered.... I think that I ought to go. The _Dione_ will be in before long--"
"We can hear her whistle when she steams in," he said.
"Are you actually inviting me to stay?" she laughed, seating herself on the soap-box once more.
They became very grave as he sat down on the ground at her feet, and, a silence threatening, she hastily filled it with a description of the yacht and Major Brent's guests. He listened, watching her intently. And after a while, having no more to say, she pretended to hear sounds resembling a distant yacht's whistle.
"It's the red-winged blackbirds in the reeds," he said. "Now will you let me say something--about the past?"
"It has buried itself," she said, under her breath.
"To-morrow is Easter," he went on, slowly. "Can there be no resurrection for dead days as there is for Easter flowers? Winter is over; Pasque Florida will dawn on a world of blossoms. May I speak, Kathleen?"