"I was wondering what that other life would have made of you," she said; "the life that I have known and wearied of—a life of petty shams, of sham love, of sham hate, of sham religion. It is all little, you know, and it takes a little soul to keep alive in it. I craved it once myself, and it took six years of artifice to teach me that I loved a plain truth better than a pretty lie."
He had been looking at the strong white hand lying in her lap, and now, with a laugh, he held out his own bronzed and roughened one.
"There is the difference," he said; "do you see it?"
A wave of sympathy swept over her expressive face, and with one of her impulsive gestures, which seemed always to convey some spiritual significance, she touched his outstretched palm with her fingers. "How full of meaning it is," she replied, "for it tells of quiet days in the fields, and of a courage that has not faltered before the thing it hates. When I look at it it makes me feel very humble—and yet very proud, too, that some day I may be your friend."
He shook his head, with his eyes on the sun, which was slowly setting.
"That is out of the question," he answered. "You cannot be my friend except for this single day. If I meet you to-morrow I shall not know you."
"Because I am a Fletcher?" she asked, wondering.
"Because you are a Fletcher, and because you would find me worse than a Fletcher."
"Riddles, riddles," she protested, laughing; "and I was always dull at guessing—but I may as well warn you now that I have come home determined to make a friend of every mortal in the county, man and beast."
"You'll do it," he answered seriously. "I'm the only thing about here that will resist you. You'll be everybody's friend but mine."