"On the contrary, Jackum, I'll get in," he answered. "If it's singing you want, I can sing very beautifully. And I can dance too; looker here." And skipping across the beach in a Fisher's Horn-pipe step, he ended with a pigeon's wing. Jack, in an ecstasy of delight, sprang up and down in Eve's arms. "'Gain! 'gain!" he cried, imperiously, his dimpled forefinger pointed at the dancer. Again Hollis executed his high leap. "Now you'll come to me, I guess," he said. And Jack went readily. "You are going for a walk, I suppose?" Hollis went on. "There's nothing very much in these woods to make it lively." He had noted the glow of anticipation in her face, and was glad that he had contributed to it. But when he turned to Paul, expecting as usual to see indifference, he did not see it; and instantly his feelings changed, he felt befooled. Jack made prodding motions with his knees. "Dant! dant!" "I'll dance in a few minutes, my boy," said Hollis. Paul and Eve went up the beach and turned into the wood. It was a magnificent evergreen forest without underbrush; above, the sunlight was shut out, they walked in a gray-green twilight. The stillness was so intense that it was oppressive. XIX. They walked for some distance without speaking. "I have just been writing to Ferdie," Paul said at last. The gray-green wood had seemed to Eve like another world, an enchanted land. Now she was forced back to real life again. "Oh, if he would only say nothing--just go on without speaking; it's all I ask," she thought. "I shall go down there in ten days or so," Paul went on. "Ferdie will be up then--in all probability well. I shall take him to Charleston, and from there we shall sail." "Sail?" "To Norway." "Norway?" "Didn't I tell you?--I have made up my mind that a long voyage in a sailing vessel will be the best thing for him just now." "And you go too?" "Of course." "Four or five weeks, perhaps?" "Four or five months; as it grows colder, we can come down to the Mediterranean." A chill crept slowly over Eve. "Was it--wasn't it difficult to arrange for so long an absence?" "As Hollis would phrase it, 'You bet it was!'" answered Paul, laughing. "I shall come back without a cent in either pocket; but I've been centless before--I'm not terrified." "If you would only take some of mine!" "You will have Cicely. We shall both have our hands full." She looked up at him more happily; they were to be associated together in one way, then, after all. But a vision followed, a realization of the blankness that was to come. Less than two weeks and he would be gone! "When the journey is over, shall you bring Ferdie to Port aux Pins?"