Her feet were stretched out as, bowed together, she sat on the low seat.

His jacket had slipped away exposing them to the weather, and the young man laying his hands on them felt them cold as in death.

He held them, chafed them, trying to restore some degree of circulation.

Finally, moved by a great upwelling of tenderness and of pity, and reckoning her, since she gave no sign, to be asleep, he bent down and put his lips to them.
But immediately the girl's hands were upon his shoulders.
"What are you doing, oh! what are you doing ?" she cried.
"Kissing your feet." Then the Devil, no doubt, flicking him, he let go restraint, disobeyed his own orders, raised his head, and looking at her as in the enfolding obscurity she leaned over him, said: "And, if it comes to that, who in all the round world has a better right than I, your brother, to kiss your feet ?" For some, to him, intolerable and interminable seconds, Faircloth waited after he had shot his bolt.

The water whispered and chuckled against the boat's sides in lazy undertones, as it floated down the sluggish stream.
Beyond this there was neither sound nor movement.