"Jeff!" said Esther.
"What is it?" he asked.
She spoke tremblingly, weakly really as if she had not the strength to speak, and he came a step nearer and laid his hand on the granite gatepost. It was so hard it gave him courage. There were blood-red vines on it, and when he disturbed their stems they loosened leaves and let them drift over his hand.
"Now I see," said Esther, "how really alone I am. I thought I was when you were away, but it was nothing to this."
She walked on, listlessly, aimlessly even though she kept the path and she was going on her way as she had elected to before she saw him. But to Jeff she seemed to be a drifting thing. A delicate butterfly floated past him, weakened by the coldness of last night and fluttering on into a night as cold.
"Esther," he called, and hurried after her. "You don't want me to walk with you?" he asked impatiently. "You don't want Addington to say we've made it up?"
"I don't care about Addington," said Esther. "It can say what it pleases—if you're kind to me."
"Kind!" said Jeff. "I could have you trounced. You don't play fair. What do you mean by mixing me all up with pity and things—" Esther's lids were not allowed to lift, but her heart gave a little responsive bound. So she had mixed him up!—"Getting the facts all wrong," Jeff went on irritably. "You ignore everything you've felt before to-day. And you begin to-day and say I've not been kind to you."
Now Esther looked at him. She smiled.
"Scold away," she said. "I've wanted you to scold me. I haven't been so happy for months."