The gasping fish on the pavement bucked.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “It’s just how things are.”

Awful. But at least he was in the conversation now. “Don’t be so fatalistic. If you don’t love me, your father and mother will arrange for you to marry someone else.”

That got her. She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I’d rather marry you than anyone else.”

“But you don’t love me.”

“Is love necessary for marriage? It wasn’t for so many generations before us. You just got what you got, whether you wanted it or not. Besides, I do love you.”

“Not the way you love Tak-Wing.”

“I don’t love that dead dog anymore.”

“Don’t call my brother a dead dog.”

“He didn’t treat me very well.”

“You’re right. He didn’t.”

“Now there’s no one for me but you.”

He turned away from her. Did she not understand how she insulted him? The silence expanded painfully. “I don’t want to marry you,” he said. “Not like this.”

The fish on the pavement gave a mighty heave, but only succeeded in turning itself over.

“I thought you loved me,” she said.

“I do.”

“Maybe we should just get married and move on to the next stage of our lives. I think I’d be content, you know, once I got used to it. There’s just been so much going on lately. Honestly, I can’t imagine marrying anyone else but you.”

“That’s not the same as ‘I’ll love you ’til the end of time.’”

“It’s not. No. But I will love you ’til the end of time.”

“How can you say the same words and mean something so utterly different by them?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m trying my best.”

“There are different kinds of love.”

“Yes, that’s right. There are. Could you be content with the kind I have to offer you?” She was finally beginning to see the situation from his point of view and felt bad for him.

“I don’t know. All I wanted was for you to love me back. Which now you say you do. It should be enough.”

“Well,” she said, “I won’t force you to marry me if the kind of love I have to offer is not the kind you want. But I thought your love for me was the kind you’d feel no matter what.”

“It is.”

“Okay,” she said, “then, shall we give it a try?”

He reached up and took her hand. But then he let go of it. She reached down and took his hand. He pulled her toward him. She gazed into his brown eyes, so like her own. His lips brushed her cheek and found her mouth. The kiss was a nervy thing for a young man more accustomed to thinking and longing than seeing and acting. He was astonished by how soft she was. As the sun set down the western end of the harbour it poured a pale pink light over them, washing them clean of the day’s discomforts.