"Supposing I said I wasn't," she said, "what would you do about it?
Give me your coat?"
Anthony stood still.
"I should take you home—quick," he said gravely.
Honestly he hoped that she would waver. He had never wanted to come. Left to himself, he and Patch would have walked—elsewhither. Had he not known that Valerie was away, he would have excused himself at breakfast. Not for anything in the world would he have forfeited a chance of meeting her. Poor Anne's feelings would have had to rough it.
"I'm as warm as toast," said Miss Alison cheerfully. "And I know you don't want to come," she added, bubbling, "but you've just got to. You'll thank me afterwards."
Fiercely as he protested his innocence, Anthony felt extremely guilty. He had, it seemed, committed a breach of good taste, which must be repaired forthwith. He determined to be very nice to Anne. This should not have been difficult, for she was full of good points.
Fate had not been kind, but Anne found no fault with her heritage. Indeed, her temper was infectiously healthy. For years now Fortune had never piped to her, but that did not keep her from dancing. In the circumstances, that she should have been so good to look upon seemed almost hard….
The two passed on.
It was a way Anthony had never gone, and, once in the thick of the woods, he could not have told where he was. Anne, apparently, knew her line backwards, for she climbed steadily, chattering all the time and taking odd paths and random grass-grown tracks with an unconscious confidence which was almost uncanny. More than once she turned to strike across some ground no foot had charted, each time unerringly to find the track upon the far side waiting to point them upward—sometimes gently, and sometimes with a sharp rise, but always upward.
For all that, the pace his companion set was almost punishing, and
Anthony was on the point of pleading a respite, when—