“Perhaps a little of both,” the girl answered, gazing down, and blushing at each word a still deeper crimson.
The blush showed sweet on that translucent skin. Walter turned to her with a sudden impulse. “And what are you going to do with them now?” he enquired, holding his breath for joy and half-suppressed eagerness.
Dolly hesitated a moment with genuine modesty. Then her liking for the well-knit young man overcame her. With a frightened smile her hand stole to her bodice; she fixed them in her bosom. “Will that do?” she asked timidly.
“Yes, that will do,” the young man answered, bending forward and seizing her soft fingers in his own. “That will do very well. And, Miss Barton—Dolores—I take it as a sign you don’t wholly dislike me.”
“I like you very much,” Dolly answered in a low voice, pulling a rock-rose from a cleft and tearing it nervously to pieces.
“Do you love me, Dolly?” the young man insisted.
Dolly turned her glance to him tenderly, then withdrew it in haste. “I think I might, in time,” she answered very slowly.
“Then you will be mine, mine, mine?” Walter cried in an ecstasy.
Dolly bent her pretty head in reluctant assent, with a torrent of inner joy. The sun flashed in her chestnut hair. The triumph of that moment was to her inexpressible.
But as for Walter Brydges, he seized the blushing face boldly in his two brown hands, and imprinted upon it at once three respectful kisses. Then he drew back, half-terrified at his own temerity.