The girl’s voice quivered a little. “No,” she said. “I have to be straightforward now, and I know you will try to make it easier for me, even if I’m hurting you. It’s no use. I shall think the same, and by and by you’ll get over this fancy, and wonder what you ever saw in me.”
The man smiled curiously. “I am afraid it will take me a lifetime,” he said.
In another moment he had gone, and Hetty turned, a trifle flushed in face, towards the house across the lawn.
“He took it very well—and I shall never find anyone half so nice again,” she said.
It was half an hour later, and Miss Torrance had recovered at least her outward serenity, when one of Mrs. Schuyler’s neighbours arrived. She brought one or two young women, and a man, with her. The latter she presented to Mrs. Schuyler.
“Mr. Reginald Clavering,” she said. “He’s from the prairie where Miss Torrance’s father lives, and is staying a day or two with us. When I heard he knew Hetty I ventured to bring him over.”
Mrs. Schuyler expressed her pleasure, and—for they had gone back to the lighted room now—Hetty presently found herself seated face to face with the stranger. He was a tall, well-favoured man, slender, and lithe in movement, with dark eyes and hair, and a slightly sallow face that suggested that he was from the South. It also seemed fitting that he was immaculately dressed, for there was a curious gracefulness about him that still had in it a trace of insolence. No one would have mistaken him for a Northerner.
“It was only an hour ago I found we were so near, and I insisted upon coming across at once,” he said. “You have changed a good deal since you left the prairie.”
“Yes,” said the girl drily. “Is it very astonishing? You see, we don’t spend half our time on horseback here. You didn’t expect to find me a sharp-tongued Amazon still?”
Clavering laughed as he looked at her, but the approval of what he saw was a trifle too evident in his black eyes.