The girl had seated herself near him, and was busily engaged in arranging the flowers until he inquired again,—
"So you were finding fault with me?"
"No," she answered, "unless it was finding fault to think of you as being different from any other person I have ever known. It was not a very serious charge to think of you as being different from the people in Davy's Bend."
There was something in that, for they were not the finest people in the world, by any means; nor could the town be justly held responsible for all their faults, as they pretended.
"No, it is not serious," he replied; "but I am sorry you are looking so well, for I am running away from you. It would be easier, were you less becoming. I am sorry you are not ugly."
There was a look of wonder in the girl's face that made her prettier than ever.
"Running away from me?"
"Yes, from you," he answered.
She began arranging the flowers again, and kept her eyes on them while he watched her face. Dorris thought of himself as a snake watching a bird, and finally looked down the river at the ferry, which happened to be moving.
"Why?" she asked at last.