"You can strain at gnats though," commented Sir Eustace, pivoting round on his skates. "Well, you know my sentiments. I haven't put my foot down yet. But I'm going to—pretty soon. It's got to be done. And if you can't bring yourself to it,—well, I shall, that's all."
He was gone with the words, swift as an arrow, leaving behind him a space so empty that Dinah felt a sudden queer little pang of desolation.
Scott remained motionless, deep in thought, for the passage of several seconds. Then abruptly the consciousness of her presence came upon him, and he turned to her. She was sitting on the bank looking up at him with frank interest. Their eyes met.
And then a very curious thing happened to Dinah. She flinched under his look, flinched and averted her own. A great shyness suddenly surged through her, a quivering, overmastering sense of embarrassment. For in that moment she viewed the flight to Olympus as he would have viewed it, and was horribly, overwhelmingly ashamed. She could not break the silence. She had no words to utter—no possible means at hand by which to cover her discomfiture.
It was he who spoke, in his voice a tinge of restraint. "I was going to ask if it would bore you to come and see my sister again this evening. I have obtained Lady Grace's permission for you to do so."
She sprang to her feet. "Of course—of course I would love to!" she said rather incoherently. "How could it bore me? I—I should like it—more than anything."
He smiled faintly, and held out his hand for the boots she had just discarded. "That is more than kind of you," he said. "My sister was afraid you might not want to come."
"Of course I want to come!" maintained Dinah. "Oh no, thank you; I couldn't let you carry my boots. How clever of you to tackle Lady Grace! What did she say?"
"Neither she nor the Colonel made any difficulty about it at all," Scott said. "I told them my sister was an invalid. Lady Grace said that I must not keep you after ten, and I promised I wouldn't."
His manner was kindly and quizzical, and Dinah's embarrassment began to pass. But he discomfited her afresh as they walked across the road by saying, "You have made it up with my brother, I see."