When Garda reached the dark shade under the great trees she paused and turned. Winthrop had followed her. She gave him a bright smile as he joined her. "I wanted to see if you would come," she said, with her usual frankness.
"Of course I came; what did you suppose I would do?"
"I did not know, that was what I wanted to find out. You are so different, I should never know."
"Different from whom? From your four persons about here? I assure you that I am not different, I have no such pretension; your four are different, perhaps, but I am like five thousand, fifty thousand, others—as you will see for yourself when you come north."
"I don't believe it," said Garda, beginning to retrace her steps. She looked at him reflectively, then added, "I don't believe they are like you."
"What is it in me that you dislike so much?"
"Oh, I haven't thought whether I dislike it or not," responded Garda, with what he called in his own mind her sweet indifference. "What I meant was simply that I do not believe there are fifty thousand, or five thousand, or even five hundred other men, who are as cold as you are."
"Do I strike you in that way?"
"Yes; but of course you cannot help it, it is probably a part of your nature—this coldness," said the girl, excusingly. "It was that which made me say that you could never have felt the feeling I was trying to describe, you know—intoxication; it needs a certain sort of temperament; I have it, but you haven't."
"I see you are an observer," said her companion, inwardly smiling, but preserving a grave face.