No, she was not angry, she said. It was only that he had set her thinking. When she got out of the car, she bade him good-night and good-bye. He only laughed.
“Don't you trust me?” he said, leaning out to her.
She raised her dark eyes.
“It is not that. I do not trust myself.”
After that nothing could have kept him away, and she knew it.
“Man demands both danger and play; therefore he selects woman as the most dangerous of toys.” A spice of danger had entered into their relationship. It had become infinitely piquant.
He motored out to the farm the next day, to be told that Miss Harrison had gone for a long walk and had not said when she would be back. That pleased him. Evidently she was frightened. Every man likes to think that he is a bit of a devil. Dr. Max settled his tie, and, leaving his car outside the whitewashed fence, departed blithely on foot in the direction Carlotta had taken.
She knew her man, of course. He found her, face down, under a tree, looking pale and worn and bearing all the evidence of a severe mental struggle. She rose in confusion when she heard his step, and retreated a foot or two, with her hands out before her.
“How dare you?” she cried. “How dare you follow me! I—I have got to have a little time alone. I have got to think things out.”
He knew it was play-acting, but rather liked it; and, because he was quite as skillful as she was, he struck a match on the trunk of the tree and lighted a cigarette before he answered.