"I mind? It's what I meant you to do," she answered lightly. "Shall I say you are very daring on my behalf?"
Jerry flushed a deep red.
"I would do anything under the sun for you, Nan," he said, in a low voice.
Whereat she laughed again—a gay, sweet laugh, and left him.
CHAPTER VII
Piet Cradock spent nearly the whole of that long evening leaning against a doorpost watching his wife dancing with Jerry Lister. They were the best-matched couple in the room, and, as a good many remarked, they seemed to know it.
Through every dance Nan laughed and talked with a feverish gaiety, conscious of that long, long gaze that never varied. She felt almost hysterical under it at last. It made her desperate—so desperate that she finally quitted the ballroom altogether in Jerry's company, and remained invisible till people were beginning to take their departure.
That feeling at the back of her mind had grown to a definite sensation that she could not longer ignore or trample into insignificance. She was horribly afraid of that silent man with his gloomy, inscrutable eyes. His look frightened, almost terrified her. She felt like a trapped creature that lies quaking in the grass, listening to the coming footsteps of its captor.
In a vague way Jerry was aware of her inquietude, and when they rose at length to leave their secluded corner, he turned and spoke with a certain blunt chivalry that did him credit.