“But if I am not free, I should not let you ruin yourself on my account.”
“Ruin? That’s only a word. A man’s all right as long as he can work.”
“Oh, Martin, it seems as if I brought trouble and unhappiness on all whom I approach!”
“That’s nonsense!” he said quickly. “You’ve made me! However this thing turns out. You’ve brought beauty into my life. You’ve taken me out of myself. You’ve given me an ideal to live up to!”
“Ah, how sweet for you to say it!” she murmured. “It makes me feel real. I am only a poor wandering ghost of a woman, and you’re so solid and convincing!
“There! I’m all right now!” she said, with an abrupt return to the boyish, prosaic air that he found utterly adorable. “I have exploded. I’m hungry. Let’s go back and make supper. It’s your turn to talk. Tell me how you got here in advance of us, you wonderful man! And Mary——!” She stopped short and her eyes filled. “How selfish of me to forget her even for a moment!”
“She was not badly wounded,” he said. “We’ll probably overtake her to-morrow.”
“And you? I thought I saw a ghost when you rose up from the bushes.”
“No magic in that,” said Stonor. “I just walked round by the hills.”
“Just walked round by the hills,” she echoed, mocking his offhand manner, and burst out laughing. “That was nothing at all!” Her eyes added something more that she dared not put into words: “You were made for a woman to love to distraction!”