Yet now Richard Hunt found himself holding the same young woman in his arms, rather against his will, of course, but not knowing what else to do with her since she scarcely looked strong enough to stand alone.
"I think I would like to sit down for a moment," Polly volunteered finally and managed to cross over to the opposite side of the road, where she established herself very comfortably on a carefully cultivated mound of grass.
Her rescuer stood over her. "May I do anything for you, Miss O'Neill?" he inquired formally. "I think it might be well for me to find your maid."
He was about to move off when Polly with her usual lack of dignity fairly clutched the back of his overcoat.
"Oh, please don't go, Mr. Hunt—Richard," she ended after a slight hesitation. "Really, I don't understand why you have treated me so unkindly all these years. I don't see the least reason why we should not have continued to be friends. Still, you were going to my hotel to call on me. There isn't any other possible reason why you were marching out this particular road, which does not lead anywhere else." And at this Miss O'Neill smiled with open and annoying satisfaction.
"I hadn't the faintest idea of asking to see you," Richard Hunt announced firmly, although a little surprised by Polly's friendly manner. If they had been parted for a matter of five weeks instead of five years, and if the cause of their separation had been only some slight disagreement rather than something affecting their whole lives, she could not have appeared more nonchalant and at the same time more cordial. But then there never had been any way of accounting for Polly O'Neill's actions and probably never would be. However, Richard Hunt had no desire again to subject himself to her moods. He wished very much to walk on, and yet he could not make up his mind to remove her hand forcibly from his coat. Moreover, she looked too pale and exhausted to be left alone. Yet this had always been a well-known method by which Polly had succeeded in gaining her own point, he remembered.
"Then what were you going to my hotel for? Didn't you even know I was staying there?" she demanded, finding breath enough to ask questions, in spite of her exhaustion of a few moments before.
If only he had been a less truthful man! For a moment Richard Hunt contemplated making up some entirely fanciful story, then he put the temptation aside.
Notwithstanding, his manner and answer were far more crushing to Miss Polly O'Neill than if he had told her a lie which she would probably have seen through at once.
Always he had commanded more respect from her than any man she had ever known in her life, which was secretly mingled with a little wholesome awe. Polly had always put it down to the fact that he was so much older than she was. But she had had other acquaintances among older men.