“You might be,” she laughed.
“You are very kind,” he declared. “But I need not tell you that nothing in this world would induce me to become one.”
She walked on, humming to herself. He was hard to tame, she told herself, but the end was so sure. Yet all her experience of his sex had shown her nothing like this. It was the first time she had played such a part. Was it only the novelty which she found attractive? She stole an upward glance at him through the twilight. Taller and more powerful than ever he seemed in the gathering darkness—so far as looks were concerned he was certainly desirable enough. And yet the world—her world, was full of handsome men. It must be something else which he possessed, some other less obvious gift, perhaps that flavour of puritanism about his speech and deportment, of which she was always conscious. He resisted where other men not only succumbed but rushed to meet their fate. It must be that, or——
She herself became suddenly serious. She looked straight ahead down the darkening lane. Fate could surely not play her a trick so scurvy as this. It could not be that she cared. Her hands were suddenly clenched; a little cry broke from her lips. Her heart was beating like a girl’s; the delicious thrill of youth seemed to be thawing her long frozen blood. Not again! she prayed, not again! It was a catastrophe this; grotesque, impossible! She thrust out her hands, as though to guard herself from some impending danger. Macheson turned to look at her in surprise, and her eyes were glowing like stars.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked.
She laughed unnaturally.
“A memory,” she answered, “a superstition if you like. Some one was walking over the grave of my forgotten days.”
She pointed to the front of the low white house, now only a few yards away. A dogcart stood there waiting, with some luggage at the back. Stephen Hurd himself, dressed for travelling, was standing in the doorway.