It would have been so easy, Ned could not help thinking, to put his arm round her and comfort her; but then, would that be a good thing for either of them? The world was all before them, and the world was not all Cariboo.
"Come, Lilla," he said at last, "this won't do. The night air is chilling you. You must run back now. What would the boys say if their little favourite came back without her smile? By George, they would give me a short shrift if they thought that it was my fault."
"The boys! Ach, what do the boys care? All women can laugh, and dance, and sing. One woman is all the same to them as another."
Well as Ned knew his little companion, he had never seen her in this mood before, and his face betrayed the wonder which her bitterness awoke in him.
A woman's eyes are quick, even in her trouble, to note the effect of her words upon anyone she cares for, so that Lilla saw the expression in Ned's face, and tried hard to rally her courage and laugh her tears away.
After her fashion the poor little hurdy girl was as proud as any titled dame on earth, and since Ned had not said that he loved her, she would try hard to keep her own pitiful little secret to herself.
"Don't look like that, Ned. Don't you know when I am acting. But, seriously, I am cross to-night. I wanted my gold, and I wanted to keep my play-fellow too. We have been such good friends—haven't we, Ned?"
It was no good. In spite of her that treacherous voice of hers would falter and break in a way quite beyond her control. Flight seemed to her the only chance.
"Ach well, this is folly," she said. "Auf wiedersehen, my friend," and she held out to him both her hands.