"Thanks, thanks! You have given me youth, and I accept it," he said aloud, perhaps addressing that mutable goddess who presides over all follies. "Regret it in my old age? Not I! I shall have lived for one short month. Youth was given to us to enjoy, and I propose to press the grape to the final drop. And when I grow old this adventure shall be the tonic to wipe out many wrinkles of care. A mad fling, a brimming cup, one short merry month--and then, the reckoning! How I hate the thought!"
He sobered; the laughter went out of his eyes and face. Changeful twenty, where so many paths reach out into the great world, paths straight and narrow, of devious turnings which end at precipices, of blind alleys which lead nowhere and close in behind!
"I love her, I love her!" His face grew bright again, and the wooing blood ran tingling in his veins. "Am I a thief, a scoundrelly thief, because I have that right common to all men, to love one woman? Some day I shall suffer for this; some day my heart shall ache; so be it!"
The sun began the downward circle; the shadows crept eastward and imperceptibly grew longer; a gray tone settled under the stones at his feet. Sometimes he sang, sometimes he stood dreaming. His fingers were growing sore and sticky and there was a twinge in his back as he shouldered his eighth basket and scrambled down to the man who weighed the pick. He was beginning his ninth when he saw Gretchen coming along the purple aisle. She waved a hand in welcome, and he sheathed his knife. No more work this day for him. He waited.
"What a beautiful day!" said Gretchen, with a happy laugh.
"Aye, what a day for love!"
"And work!"
"Kiss me!"
"When you fill that basket."
"Not before?"
"Not even a little one," mischief in her glance. Out came the knife and the vintner plied himself furiously. Gretchen had a knife of her own, and she joined him. They laughed gaily. Snip, snip; bunch by bunch the contents of the basket grew.
"There!" he said at last. "That's what I call work; but it is worth it. Now!"
Gretchen saw that it would be futile to hold him off longer; what she would not give he would of a surety take. So she put her hands behind her back, closed her eyes, and raised her chin. He kissed not only the lovely mouth, but the eyes and cheeks and hair.
"Gretchen, you are as good and beautiful as an angel."