“Oh!” she cried with flashing comprehension. “Oh, how could you! You—”
He nodded curtly. “Yes,” he said. “I am that haphazard harlequin, John Valiant, himself.”
CHAPTER XX
ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
There was a pause not to be reckoned by minutes but suffocatingly long. She had grown as pale as he.
“That was ungenerous of you,” she said then with icy slowness. “Though no doubt you—found it entertaining. It must have still further amused you to be taken for an architect?”
“I am flattered,” he replied, with a trace of bitterness, “to have suggested, even for a moment, so worthy a calling.”
Though he spoke calmly enough, his thoughts were in ragged confusion. As her gaze dived into his, he was conscious of outré fancies. She seemed to him like some snow-cloud in woman’s shape, edged with anger and swept by a wrathful wind into this summery afternoon. For her part she was telling herself with passionate resentment that he had no right so to misrepresent himself—to lead her on to such a dénouement. At his answer she put out her hand with a sudden gesture, as if bluntly thrusting the matter from her concern, and turning, went back along the tree-shadowed path.