She held that startled attitude a moment longer, then turned and crossed the glade so hurriedly that it was almost as if she ran away from him. I had moved aside with my easel and camp-stool, but she passed close to me as she entered the path again on my side of the glade. She did not seem to see me, her dark eyes stared widely straight ahead, her lips were parted, and she looked white and frightened.
She disappeared very quickly in the windings of the path.
CHAPTER IX
He came on more slowly, his eyes following her as she vanished, then turning to me with a rather pitiful apprehension—a look like that I remember to have seen (some hundreds of years ago) on the face of a freshman, glancing up from his book to find his doorway ominously filling with sophomores.
I stepped out to meet him, indignant upon several counts, most of all upon his own. I knew there was no offence in his heart, not the remotest rude intent, but the fact was before me that he had frightened a woman, had given this very lovely guest of my friends good cause to hold him a boor, if she did not, indeed, think him (as she probably thought me) an outright lunatic! I said:
“You spoke to that lady!” And my voice sounded unexpectedly harsh and sharp to my own ears, for I had meant to speak quietly.
“I know—I know. It—it was wrong,” he stammered. “I knew I shouldn’t—and I couldn’t help it.”
“You expect me to believe that?”