And a still graver look passed over her face.
Bayre looked at her and softened in spite of himself.
“Of course it does,” said he, almost humbly. “It must make a very great difference to you. In fact, I can’t understand how you manage to exist in such utter loneliness as you describe.”
The girl gave a sort of sigh, which she immediately turned into a laugh.
“Well, I don’t suppose I shall have to endure it for long. In the meantime it’s such a pleasant change, after the strict school-hours I’ve been accustomed to, to get up when I like, to read as much as I like, to walk, row, sail, bathe just when I like, that I haven’t found life pall upon me one bit. Whether I should get tired of it if I had nothing else to look forward to I don’t know; I suppose I should grow restless and discontented. But at present I can’t say that I’m suffering tortures on account of the touch of Robinson Crusoeism that there is in my existence.”
Of course she was not. Bayre glanced at her and understood perfectly the feeling of freedom after restraint which this live, this brilliant creature, quivering with vitality, must enjoy in the easy, open-air life she described: even her reading, he thought to himself, would be done for the most part out of doors, with the fresh breeze from the sea blowing upon her young face, the salt spray helping to curl into graceful little tendrils the loose strands of brown hair which escaped from the confinement of the black ribbon at the nape of her neck.
“What do you read? Novels, I suppose?” he asked, after a moment’s pause.
And the moment he had uttered the words he felt that they were an impertinence. What right had he to question her upon her habits and tastes? She blushed a little, and he had begun to stammer a kind of apology when she waved away his words and said frankly,—
“Novels! Yes. I’m afraid it is chiefly novels. But I’ve read Carlyle’s French Revolution, and liked it too!” she added, with a certain rather comical pride.
“That was indeed most meritorious on your part,” said Bayre, with mock gravity, feeling the oddest conflict within him between his avowed tastes and the strong and strange attraction this girl had for him.