“I am sorry I missed the sunrise,” she said, relenting, and wishful to make amends. “Tell me about it.”
He smiled faintly.
“Can any one describe a sunrise?” he asked. “Are there any words in our language which will paint nature in her most wonderful aspects? If there are I am ignorant of them. You must go out and see these things for yourself.”
This was not encouraging, but she persevered. A sort of inflexible determination to abolish finally the frigid distances he insistently maintained armed her with a temporary bravado which amazed herself. It probably amazed him equally, but he made no sign if so.
“I do not like seeing things by myself. Won’t you let me accompany you some morning?”
“Most assuredly,” he answered, after a barely perceptible hesitation. “But quite possibly you will miss your breakfast. I tramp far.”
“I shall not complain,” she said. “If you are equal to fasting I have no doubt I can stand it.”
Hallam looked quietly amused. He surveyed her quite steadily for the fraction of a second, and then very deliberately turned his attention again to his plate.
“Do you really think,” he asked presently, “that your endurance is equal to mine? You don’t look to me very strong.”
She was thinking the same about him, but she did not voice her thought. Possibly he read what she was thinking in her face when he glanced again momentarily towards her; whether this were so or not, he added after a pause: