“No, let us say my heroine.” He had fallen into step right behind me on the narrow pathway, and I could hear him dodging the pine boughs that snapped backward after I passed.

“A heroine? I detest that word, heroine.”

“And why is that?”

“It is only just hero with a little tail stitched on.”

He was silent. We walked forward for a bit, until I heard the osprey call and circled toward the cove, following its shrill cry. I could hear him step after step behind me, his hand brushing back the cobwebs in regular time to his even breathing. I found I enjoyed his company—he did not talk needlessly to pass the time as we walked.

“I do not think I understand your meaning, Miss Grange.” I paused and looked behind at him blankly.

“A little tail?”

“Oh.” I frowned. “I do not think a feminine character should be described in similar terms to a masculine character.”

“But surely heroine connotes its own meaning, distinct from hero?”

I walked on again, uneasy. I did not know how to answer him—and the distinction was of vital importance. It was as if my mind stubbed up against the borders of itself, like a rock wall suddenly risen at the edge of what had seemed a limitless and broad spring field. I knew what I meant, but I did not have the tongue to say it out loud. We were nearing the cove, and I could hear the soft washing of the water onto the flat rocks. Hearing our advance, the osprey began a shrieking that caused me to stop dead and wait for the next sound to beckon me in a new direction. The osprey shrieked again, then was answered by another, the call coming from deeper into the woods.

The birdcall and its answer suggested the manner of my reply. I stopped walking and looked at him as I gathered my thoughts and set them clearly upon the sill.

“Say aloud the word hero,” I instructed him.

He did so, and the wonder of it was he did not question me by look or word.

“Now say the word heroine.”

Again he did what I asked.

“Do you hear?”

He shook his head. “What is it you mean me to hear?”

“Hero. Heroine. Hero. Heroine.” I repeated the words slowly and carefully, the fog brushing across the place we had stopped, as if to soften the very edges of my meaning.

Again he shook his head.

“The echo. The lady word is nought but a softer, longer version of the man word.”

“And are not man and woman versions of each other?” He was not light as he asked this question.

“If the similarity might be signified in another fashion,” I answered, “so that the one is not the other with an addition—I do not like that addition: It speaks of fainting couches and lilting voices and cast-down gazes.”