"Well?" she demanded in a frigid voice.
He looked away in complete confusion, and felt his face burning to the temples.
"I beg your pardon," he mumbled unhappily.
He essayed to walk. Twenty feet and more of treacherous, dry, yielding sand separated them from the flight of steps that ascended the bluff. It proved no easy journey; and its difficulty was complicated by his determination to spare the woman as much as he could. Gritting his teeth, he grinned and bore without a murmur until, the first stage of the journey accomplished, he was able to grasp a handrail at the bottom of the stairs and breathe devout thanks through the medium of a gasp.
"Shall we rest a bit?" the woman asked, compassionate, ignoring now the impertinence she had chosen to resent a few moments ago.
"Think I can manage—thanks," he said, panting a little. "It'll be easier now—going up. I shan't need help."
He withdrew his arm, perhaps not without regret, but assuredly with a comforting sense of decent consideration for her, as well as with some slight and intrinsically masculine satisfaction in the knowledge that he was overcoming her will and her resistance.
"No—honestly!" he insisted. "These handrails make it easy."
"But please be sure," she begged. "Don't take any chances. I don't mind...."
"Let me demonstrate, then."