Evening drew on, and at last there was no help for it but to make for the station and catch our usual train back to town.
They were standing on the platform when I reached it. I walked straight up to them. Dolly flushed crimson when she saw me and then went pale as a windflower, but she never spoke a word.
“Hullo!” said Jason. “The wanderer returned. We’ve had a rare day of it; and you have, too, no doubt.”
I spoke steadily, with a set determination to prove master of myself.
“I’ve been looking for you all day. Dolly, I’m sorry I left you in a temper. Please forgive me, dear.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, indifferently and weariedly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does matter to me, Dolly, very much, to keep your good opinion.”
She turned and looked at me with a strange expression, as if she were on the point of bursting into tears, but she only ended with a little formless laugh and looked away again.
“I don’t think you can value my good opinion much, and I’m sure I don’t know why you should.”
The train lunging in at this point stopped our further talk; and, once seated in it, the girl lay back in her corner with closed eyes as if asleep.