"Yesterday something else prevented you. You have only been out with me once this week."
"Surely more than that?" she said calmly; "twice, I think?"
"Once. You went with me on Tuesday. There's all day for the boy, Cynthia; you might spare me the evening."
She bent lower over the pinafore, engrossed by it.
"It isn't only the boy, poor little chap! What a tyrant you'd make him out! Yesterday I didn't feel like going; I was up to my eyes in a book."
Kent regarded her hungrily.
"I've very little claim on you, I know; but when I first came——"
"'Sh!" she said.... "What a mountain out of a molehill! If I haven't been with you since Tuesday, we must have our walk together toil morrow."
Kent found this very unsatisfactory. It was a concession, and he did not seek her society as a concession. The walk, as usual latterly, was short, and neither had the air of enjoying it very much. They roamed along the dusty roads for the most part in silence, and for the rest with platitudes. He could not avoid seeing that her companionship was reluctantly accorded, and after their return, when she put out her hand in the stereotyped "Good-night," he resolved not to beg her to go with him any more.
He wasn't without a hope that, by refraining from the request, he might move her to gratitude; but her avoidance of him did not diminish, and when August came, he questioned whether he ought to leave her for a while. The part that she had allotted to herself was plainly more than she could sustain; to relieve her temporarily of his presence might be the most considerate plan he could adopt? But the notion repelled him violently. Though she was colder and ill at ease, she enchained him. He had very little, and that little he was loath to lose. To look at her across the room, unobserved, in their long pauses was not charged with regret only—the bitterness had an indefinable joy as well; he liked to note the effect of lamplight on her profile as she read, took pleasure in her grace when she moved. To spare her what distress he could, however, was his duty—yes, if she wished it, he would go! He debated, where he sat smoking by the window one evening, whether she would wish it if she knew how dear she had grown to him; whether if he stammered to her something of his remorse——His pain had become almost intolerable.