"Don't ask me why," she said. Then as she saw the grave look in King's eyes she got up and placed her hand on his arm. "Oh, it has nothing to do with you," she said in a voice that was all softness. "I—I didn't know at first that—that it was you."
Suddenly her manner changed.
"Let's go down now," she said quickly, picking up her pail of berries. "We're going to have tea."
Almost as she spoke the words she was off down the hill at a pace that made King exert himself to keep up with her. She ran along the smooth round timbers and leaped from one to another of the fallen logs so lightly and gracefully that King was put to it to save himself from being completely outstripped. She carried her berries in one hand and her hat in the other, and her hair, blown loose by the breeze, shone in the sunlight—transparent gold against a mass of black.
As he watched her, something of the wonder of their first meeting came back to him. He had never seen a girl so lithe, so wild, so beautiful. There was exultation in her every movement, and her laugh rippled musically as she leaped and climbed and ran along over the most difficult ground. Sometimes she looked back at him as if to make sure that he was following, and he saw her face radiant with life and youth. Once she waited till he came up to her before venturing along a dizzy bit of footing that required care in passing. When he came to her she placed her hand in his and together they went on.
From the look she gave him he scarcely knew whether she wanted help herself or wished to help him. But the clasp of her hand was so firm, so throbbing with vitality, that he wished he might still hold those fingers closed within his own after they had come to level footing. The thought of it sent the blood coursing through his veins, and an impulse started up within him—an impulse that came out of the very depths of his being and made him forget for the time being everything in the world except this moment on a wild hillside with beauty and grace and youth within his reach.
When they reached the evergreens Cherry bounded ahead and left him to follow. The ground was level and soft underfoot and carpeted with cones and needles. Once she stopped suddenly in a little space open to the sky, and stooping down picked a wildflower and held it up to him.
"Not often you find them growing in a place so sheltered as this," she remarked as she gave him the flower.
He took it and looked from the flower, pure, white and soft, to her face. Unconsciously his gaze shifted to her throat, as pure and white and soft as the flower he held in his hand. Then she turned quickly and hurried off again into the cover of the evergreens.
Once she stopped so suddenly and turned so unexpectedly to meet him that he had almost run into her before he could check himself. Then as he stood in questioning attitude she shook her hair back from her face and with a ripple of a laugh was away again before he could speak.