"Yes, yes, I knew that. Papa told me. He always writes to me, you know;
from the office, poor darling!"
She appealed to him urgently. "Please don't talk about them just yet.
Please don't."
He saw the mist in her eyes, and was afraid. "All right, Sancie, all
right. I'm frightfully sorry. Beastly painful all this, you know." He was
much disturbed. To his simple soul a fine day, a fine-fettled river
demanded, as of right, a happy mood in man, for whom all things were made.
And a fine girl by his side, a good, a brave, a splendid girl--down on her
luck--on such a day! What could one do? If, when you began, she choked you
off! Wouldn't meet you half-way--bottled it up! And here he was, geared
for fishing, and without the heart to wet a line, because of all this
misery. Sanchia, sharply in profile to him, from cheek to chin, from
shoulder to low breast, all one sinuous, lax, beautiful line, broke in on
his rueful meditations. "There's a rise," she said. "Look, look."
His eye swept the river. "You're right. By Gad, that's a whacker. That's a
fish. Now, you stop just where you are, net in hand. Don't move, and you
shall see something."
He left her, and ran stooping down the bank, all his little soul
concentrated in his cast.
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