“What I said—just what I said. Why aren't you fair?”
“Ah, this is at least a reproach!”
She coloured to the roots of her hair.
“It looks as if you were trying to make out that I am disagreeable,” she murmured. “Am I? You will make me afraid to open my mouth presently. I shall end by believing I am no good.”
Her head drooped a little. He looked at her smooth, low brow, the faintly coloured cheeks, and the red lips parted slightly, with the gleam of her teeth within.
“And then I won't be any good,” she added with conviction. “That I won't! I can only be what you think I am.”
He made a slight movement. She put her hand on his arm, without raising her head, and went on, her voice animated in the stillness of her body:
“It is so. It couldn't be any other way with a girl like me and a man like you. Here we are, we two alone, and I can't even tell where we are.”
“A very well-known spot of the globe,” Heyst uttered gently. “There must have been at least fifty thousand circulars issued at the time—a hundred and fifty thousand, more likely. My friend was looking after that, and his ideas were large and his belief very strong. Of us two it was he who had the faith. A hundred and fifty thousand, certainly.”
“What is it you mean?” she asked in a low tone.