The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

84 THE FOOT OF TIME
"Especially as what?"
"Since I know what you want to tell me."
"Oh, no you don't, Edith. It is something
rather awful."
"How tragic we are, Bruce."
The boy put his arm through hers, propelled her
slightly off the track. "Shall we go in here—in
case anyone comes along?" he asked.
"No, Bruce. It's dangerous to leave the tracks.
One can get lost as easy as easy."
"Surely not. It must only be a question of keeping
one's sense of direction."
"Quite, Bruce; only that. I should have thought
you would have known by instinct how careful
one has to be."
"I bet I should take some losing."
"Don't ever risk it, dear. You might learn you
were mistaken. I should say you were about the
poorest bushman, you funny old engineer"—Edith
squeezed his arm—"that was ever born. I believe
you would lose yourself frightfully easily."
"I should like to be lost—with you."
"Why—why, Bruce?"
"Because I love you."
"Oh! Do you really? Really and truly?"
"More than I can possibly tell you. I simply
can't put it into words."
"I wonder why you love me, Bruce?" Edith
questioned. "What is there about me that makes
you feel—feel like that? I'm not pretty, or—"
"Oh, yes, you are, you darling. I simply worship
you Will you marry me?"
THE FOOT OF TIME 85
"One day I should love to, but—" The girl
gave a happy laugh, her lovely eyes were alight,
with a soft warm glow. Her lips were rather
more parted than usual; her whole body, in some
indescribable way, appeared to have found itself.
Edith Burne certainly looked pretty just now, listening
to her lover's broken avowal of love for her.
"But," she went on, "we are hardly in a position
to talk much about it yet, are we? I mean undergraduate-ness,"—she
chuckled at the word—"is a
difficult time to set up housekeeping, isn't it?"
"Will you promise that you will wait for me?
Will you promise that nothing, absolutely nothing,
will make you change your mind?"
"I think I am safe to say yes to that, darling,"
Edith assured him. Yet, even as she uttered it,
something about him set her wondering.
But Bruce took her to him. "You lovely, beautiful
thing!" he muttered, then put his lips to hers.
She answered him kiss for kiss—then they recovered
themselves.
"There is something I ought to have told you
first, Edith," Bruce commenced, releasing her. "I
ought to have told you first—it's something about
my history, something rather dreadful, or so some
people would think."
"I don't expect I'm one of those kind of people,
boy."
"It's something about my father."
"Whatever does it matter since he's dead?"
"That's just it. He isn't!"