“Oh, yes. I was the one to do the bouncing out and nabbing you, wasn’t I? Well, now, I can’t believe you were the more frightened of the two, for all that. Have this chair, please; it is the most comfortable. You see, I fancied Raquel had changed under my touch from dusky brown to angelic white. The hat hid your face, you know, until you turned around, and then––”
“Well?” At the first tone of compliment she had forgotten all the strangeness of their meeting, and remembered only the coquetry so naturally her own. With or without the uniform of her country, he was at least a man, and there had been a dearth of men about their plantation, “The Terrace,” of late.
“Well,” he repeated after her, “when you tipped the hat back I thought in a wink of all the fairy stories of transformation I used to hear told by the old folks in Ireland.”
“Do you really mean that you believe fairy stories?” Her tone was severe and her expression chiding.
“On my faith I believed them all that minute.”
Her eyes dropped to the toe of her slipper. It was all very delightful, this tete-a-tete with the complimentary unknown, and to be thought a fairy! She wished she had gone up with Aunt Sajane and brushed her hair. Still––
“I was sure it was Mr. Loring who had hold of me until I looked around,” she confessed, “and that frightened me just as much as the wickedest fairy or goblin could ever do.”
“Indeed, now, would it?”
She glanced around to see if her indiscreet speech had been overheard and then nodded assent.