David walked in a vision. Was it Susan, this soft and docile being, close against his side, her head moving slowly as her eyes ranged over the magical prospect? He was afraid to speak for fear the spell would break. He did not know which way his feet bore him, but blindly went on, looking down at the profile almost against his shoulder, at the hand under which his had slid, small and white in the transforming light. His silence was not like hers, the expression of a temporary, lulled tranquility. He had passed the stage when he could delay to rejoice in lovely moments. He was no longer the man fearful of the hazards of his fate, but a vessel of sense ready to overflow at the slightest touch.

It came when a ravine opened at their feet and she drew herself from him to gather up her skirts for the descent. Then the tension broke with a tremulous "Susan, wait!" She knew what was coming and braced herself to meet it. The mystical hour, the silver-bathed wonder of the night, a girl's frightened curiosity, combined to win her to a listening mood. She felt on the eve of a painful but necessary ordeal, and clasped her hands together to bear it creditably. Through the perturbation of her mind the question flashed - Did all women feel this way? and then the comment, How much they had to endure that they never told!

It was the first time any man had made the great demand of her. She had read of it in novels and other girls had told her. From this data she had gathered that it was a happy if disturbing experience. She felt only the disturbance. Seldom in her life had she experienced so distracting a sense of discomfort. When David was half way through she would have given anything to have stopped him, or to have run away. But she was determined now to stand it, to go through with it and be engaged as other girls were and as her father wished her to be. Besides there was nowhere to run to and she could not have stopped him if she had tried. He was launched, the hour had come, the, to him, supreme and awful hour, and all the smothered passion and hope and yearning of the past month burst out.

Once she looked at him and immediately looked away, alarmed and abashed by his appearance. Even in the faint light she could see his pallor, the drops on his brow, the drawn desperation of his face. She had never in her life seen anyone so moved and she began to share his agitation and wish that anything might happen to bring the interview to an end.

"Do you care? Do you care?" he urged, trying to look into her face. She held it down, not so much from modesty as from an aversion to seeing him so beyond himself, and stammered:

"Of course I care. I always have. Quite a great deal. You know it."

"I never knew," he cried. "I never was sure. Sometimes I thought so and the next day you were all different. Say you do. Oh, Susan, say you do."

He was as close to her as he could get without touching her, which, the question now fairly put, he carefully avoided doing. Taller than she he loomed over her, bending for her answer, quivering and sweating in his anxiety.