‘Here,’ says Susan, as she steps in the most unexpected fashion from behind the tree. He can see that she is greatly disconcerted, and that she would never have come from behind it if remaining there was any longer possible. But she had seen and heard him, as he had seen and heard her.
She advances now, her expression cold and unkindly, and her hands still struggling with her hair, in her desire to reduce it to some sort of reason.
‘Why trouble yourself about it?’ says Crosby. ‘It is the prettiest thing I ever saw as it is.’
‘It is not pretty to me,’ says Susan crushingly. Her arms are still above her head, and, as she speaks to him, she weaves into a superb coil the loose strands of her soft hair. In spite of this, however, the little locks around her brows, loosened and softened by the late washing, are straying wildly, flying here and there of their own sweet will, and making an aureole round Susan’s head, out of which her eyes gleam at Crosby with anything but friendship in them.
‘How d’ye do?’ says he blandly.
‘How d’ye do?’ says Susan in return. She lets her hand rest in his for the barest moment, then withdraws it.
Crosby regards her reproachfully. ‘You are angry with me still,’ says he. ‘And after a whole night of reflection.’
‘I am not angry at all,’ says Susan. ‘Why should you think so?’
‘Yes, you are,’ says Crosby. ‘I can see it in your eyes. Your very hair is bristly. And all because—’ He stops, as if afraid to go on.
‘Because what?’ asks Susan, with a touch of severity.