“I know, but—”
“You needn’t be afraid of me!” he exclaimed. “You aren’t, are you, dear?”
“No more than I am of myself,” she answered frankly, while her throat and face warmed with blood that suddenly burned there. “We—really oughtn’t to be alone like this, Hal.”
He laughed and opened his arms to let her go. For a moment she stood looking up at him; then her eyes, too innocent to find the guile in his, smiled with pure-hearted affection.
“Forgive me, Hal!” said she. “I didn’t mean that. But, you know, when you put your arms round me like that—”
“I won’t do it again,” he answered, instinct telling him the bird would take fright if the trap seemed too tightly closed. He dropped his arms, the palms of his hands spread outward. “You see, when you tell me to let you go, I mind you?”
“Yes, like the good, dear boy you are!” she exclaimed with sudden, impulsive affection. She reached up, took his face in both hands and studied his eyes. He thought she was about to kiss him, and his heart leaped. He quivered to seize her, to burn his kisses on her lips, there in the leafy, sun-glimmering shade; but already Laura’s arms had fallen, and she had turned away, back toward the path that would lead them downward from this tiny enchanted garden to the common level of the world again.
“Come, Hal,” said she, “we must be going now!”
He nodded, his eyes glowering coals of desire, and followed after. Was the bird, then, going to escape his hand? A sinister look darkened his face; just such a look as had made Captain Briggs a brute when he had shouldered his way into his cabin aboard the Silver Fleece, to master the captive girl.