"I want to speak to you," he said, with an effort; "shall I call you—Rachel?"
She smiled. "I think so; we needn't pretend about conventionalities; if it's simpler to call me Rachel, pray do so. I can't quite make up my mind to what I shall call you yet. Probably for a time it will be something as cryptic as 'um.'"
"I wish I had your fortitude," said Belhaven fervently.
"Better not; when we have it, we're called upon to exercise it, we're used as buffers by our weaker neighbors. Personally I've often regretted that I wasn't as irresponsible as Sidney Billop. I know of no one more care-free and sweetly untroubled; Sidney's a veritable lily of the field."
Belhaven moved the smaller impedimenta of the tea-table about with restless fingers and frowned abstractedly as he viewed the teapot. "Astry says we ought to go off for a wedding journey; he's trying to drive us both to the last ditch, I suppose, to make you confess that you took me to shield—your sister."
"I think we'll cut out the wedding journey; Johnstone's very much like an Iroquois medicine-man; he wants to fire the splinters after driving them into the flesh."
"There are the conventionalities; people will talk; in fact, people are talking."
"I wish you'd remembered the conventionalities before," replied Rachel, with her first flash of indignation.
"I admit the justice of your reproach; it's quite in your power to dictate terms to me; I've admitted myself to be in the wrong."
Her face flushed. "I hate reproaches, I always try to avoid them, but—I'm very human!"