'Suspicious, then?'
'Not without extreme and just reason,' replied Allan, as his mind flashed back to the Holcroft episode.
She strove to glance at him defiantly, but failing, smiled, though his handsome face had in it an expression of sorrow and anger.
'Ere a month be past, Olive, an Egyptian bullet may make you every way a free woman, so far as regards your father's will.'
'I do not wish to be free from it,' she was on the point of saying passionately, but controlled her speech and remained—unwisely—silent.
Allan regarded her wistfully.
'Are injudicious reticence and a little aversion the best beginning of a true love?' he asked.
'Perhaps—I am no casuist,' said she, tapping the ground with a pretty little foot impatiently.
Lovely, pouting, and wistful, her face was now turned to his with a mixture of petulance and shy reproach as she thought,
'Oh, why does he not take me in his arms, and kiss and make a fuss with me as he used to do.'