The girl rose and stamped her foot on the grass. The soft turf swallowed the sound, but the passionate gesture was not less impressive because noiseless. "You hush!" she said. "Don't you dare to think things like that about him. He's perfect. He never harmed anybody, never! And for you to dare to blacken him with your beastly thoughts just because I've been fool enough to care."
Swayed by unprecedented emotion, Warren rose to his feet. In her earlier anger the girl had been merely a lovely virago. Now, in her furious defense of the man he had apparently misjudged, she was superb. Warren felt himself swept from his moorings.
"Very well, Hephzibah. I'll take your word for it that he's all right."
"He doesn't know. He doesn't even dream. There's—He loves some one else."
"Don't, Hephzibah. Poor little girl! What a damned muddle life is." He was fumbling for his card.
"Can you write, dear?"
"After a fashion." All in a minute she was another woman, with radiant mischief peering out of her eyes.
"Here's my address on this card. If you should change your mind, write me. I hope and believe you will. Just because one man is blind, it doesn't follow that there's nothing else in life."
She gave a slight start, looking at him obliquely, the mischief quite gone from her eyes. But she accepted his card, and then of her own accord gave him her hand. "You have been good to take so much trouble," she said. "Thank you." The two had changed markedly since the dialogue under the elm tree began. The girl's hostility had vanished as completely as the man's condescension.