“You’ve been listening to the chatter at the hotel,” he said.
“It’s stupid, I know.” She tapped her foot on a stone with a movement of impatience and looked away from him. “It’s easy to imagine anything in this jungle. There is something awesome even in its beauty.”
“It’s the dim light,” he said, “and the suggestion of things hidden from sight. With your nerves you should remain in the sunlight.”
Esmé laughed suddenly. She turned her face towards him again and scrutinised him with greater attentiveness.
“Yes,” she said. “I like the sunlight. I like things which are revealed and comprehensive; the furtiveness of secrecy terrifies me. I prefer to move in the open.”
“And miss the surprises which life conceals,” he said.
“I hadn’t thought of that. But I’m not particularly inquisitive,” she replied.
Why it should vex her to see him smile at this, she did not know; but that he did smile, and that she resented his doing so, was certain. She flushed and looked round for her escort, whom she now saw coming towards them, leaping agilely across the boulders in the stream. He showed surprise on seeing Hallam; his manner was not cordial.
“If you are rested, we’ll go on,” he said, addressing himself to Esmé.
She stood up. Hallam raised his hat and turned back in the direction whence he had come. The girl felt sorry as she watched him go; she would have liked it had he joined their walk. But she believed that to propose such a thing would have been acceptable neither to him nor to Sinclair. In any case he would probably have declined. Already the ice, so unexpectedly broken, was forming again, a thin crust of resistance upon the surface of his temporary geniality.