She shook her head positively. "Impossible."
"Why not?"
"Impossible," she repeated. "And you mustn't speak of it to me—or to him. I appreciate your motive. I thank you—really, I do. It makes me feel better, somehow, to have had any one think so well of me as you do. And Grant ought to be proud of your friendship."
Their eyes met. She flushed to the line of her hair and her glance fell, for she felt utterly ashamed of herself for the design upon him which she had been harboring. "Let us go in and join the others," said she confusedly. And her color fled, returned in a flood.
"No, I'm off," replied he, in his ordinary, sharp, bustling way. "I'm not defeated. I've done well—very well, for a beginning." And he gave her hand his usual firm, uncomfortable clasp, and rushed away.
She walked up and down full fifteen minutes before she went toward the house. At the veranda Lucia intercepted her. "Did he?" she asked anxiously.
Margaret looked at her vaguely, then smiled. "No, he did not."
"He didn't?" exclaimed Lucia, at once disappointed and relieved.
"Not yet," said Margaret. She laughed, patted Lucia's full-blown cheek. "Not quite yet." And she went on in to tea, humming to herself gayly; she did not understand her own sudden exceeding high spirits.