“Not a-course,” he added deprecatingly, “meanin’ that anything like that would be likely to happen to 262 you. Seein’ as you didn’t exactly understand, I wouldn’t take no steps against you.” And, even more encouragingly, “I doubt if I’d hev any legal right to proceed against anybody without seeing Den––without seeing the rightful owner first.”
He bit his tongue painfully in covering that slip, but Dryad had not seemed to notice it. She crossed back to the stove and in an absolute silence fell to prodding with a fork beneath steaming lids.
“I really should have thought of that myself,” she murmured pensively. “After seeing you return from here every afternoon, I should have known he––the place had been left in your care.”
It rather startled him––that half absent-minded statement of hers––it disturbed his confidence in his command of the situation. Sitting there he told himself that he should have realized long ago that she could easily watch the hill road from the door of the little drab cottage huddled at the end of Judge Maynard’s acres.
He began to feel guilty again––began to wonder just how much his daily visits to Denny’s place had led her to suspect. But Dryad did not wait for any reply. She had turned once more until she was facing him, her lips beginning to curl again, petal-like, at the corners.
“But you would have to interview the real owner first?” she inquired insistently. “You do think that 263 would be necessary before you could make me leave, don’t you?”
He nodded––nodded warily. Something in her bearing put him on his guard. And then, before he knew how it had happened, a little rush had carried her across the room and she was kneeling at his feet, her face upflung to him.
“Then you’ll have to interview me,”––the words trembled madly, breathlessly, from her lips. “You’ll have to interview me––because––because I own it all––all––every bit of it!”
And she laughed up at him––laughed with a queer, choking, strained note catching in her throat up into his blankly incredulous face. He felt her thin young arms tighten about him; he even half caught her next hysterical words in spite of his amazement, and for all that they were quite meaningless to him.
“You dear,” she rushed on. “O, you dear, dear stubborn old fraud! I punished you, didn’t I? You were frightened––afraid I’d go! You know you were! As if I’d ever leave until––until––” She failed to finish that sentence. “But I’ll never, never tease you so again!”