"No. Yes." (They could come down before the Presbyterian Church was out.) "Let's walk very fast."
They talked little on the way, but neither of them noticed the fact. They were approaching that point where nur das reine Zusammensein was interchange enough. From the Dug Road they turned into the ravine. Ethan caught her by the hand, and they scrambled breathless to the top.
"Let's rest here," he said.
Val sat down under the elder-bush that grew in the cleft of the Hill. She looked up at him smiling, and then turned away her conscious eyes. Instead of sitting down, he stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at her with a sense of vague uneasiness behind the tingling in his blood.
"I suppose you know that I ought to have taken you home after your flat refusal to go to church?"
"You aren't my master—yet."
"Yes, I am."
The blood flew to her face obedient to the call.
"Yes," she said, slowly, "you are."
He turned away, cursing his traitor tongue.