Very far off up the river a steamer hooted with its hollow voice of unspeakable melancholy, as if from the heart of lonely mist-shrouded voyagings.
"Ah!" Rodney cried, striking his hand once more upon the balustrade, "why can't one say how beautiful it all is?
Why am I condemned for ever, Katharine, to feel what I can't express?
And the things I can give there's no use in my giving.

Trust me, Katharine," he added hastily, "I won't speak of it again.

But in the presence of beauty--look at the iridescence round the moon!--one feels--one feels--Perhaps if you married me--I'm half a poet, you see, and I can't pretend not to feel what I do feel.

If I could write--ah, that would be another matter.

I shouldn't bother you to marry me then, Katharine." He spoke these disconnected sentences rather abruptly, with his eyes alternately upon the moon and upon the stream.
"But for me I suppose you would recommend marriage ?" said Katharine, with her eyes fixed on the moon.
"Certainly I should.