Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/113

 house," he started. He felt the need of adding, "I thought something was the matter," but he felt how silly it would sound now to suggest that, when she turned toward the lake, he had had an idea that she might be intending a plunge into these waters; besides, he had never actually supposed it. So he said aloud, and rather weakly, "I wondered where you were going. I happened to be up. I'm often up early."

"So am I but not so often out, though I love it."

"So do I," said Dave. "Or at least I think I'm going to."

"Why don't you know now?"

"Oh, outdoors has meant mostly work for me; but now it's going to mean—well, just outdoors to me, too."

She nodded, her eyes softening. "I've heard about how you've worked," she said. "Outdoors and indoors, everywhere was a place for terribly hard work for you, wasn't it?"

She started walking and he went close beside her. She did not seem to choose any direction but naturally to follow the winding of the little valley of ice and snow which, though it wavered to right and left, held generally to the north.

She was on his right, between him and the sun.

"You seem to stand up to hard work!" she considered, not sympathizing now but admiring.

"You certainly stand up to the cold!"

She laughed as her foot almost at that instant slid on the icy side of a hummock; she caught herself as she went down on one knee with her hand to the ice and she recovered so quickly that, though he thrust