"I hope I have not offended you, you are not——" he earnestly began.
She interrupted him with a little laugh.
"Nothing so serious as that," she lightly exclaimed, waving one fair hand. "It is time for us to be looking after the luncheon."
She stooped and patted the head of one of the dogs. The rest of the sportsmen came straggling up the incline from the fields, one of them singing a gay hunting carol.
Reynolds picked up his bag and gun. There was a glow in his eyes and a hot tingle in his veins. He looked at the lithe, graceful form, and sweet, earnest face of the young woman, as at an inestimable treasure. The flush had returned to her cheeks and lips, though she had struggled hard to overcome this incomprehensible emotion.
"Why can't we stay here a little longer?" he asked, almost with vehemence. "I was enjoying it so much. There's no dire necessity for going, just at this moment. is there?"
She fixed her eyes on his for a second, then lowered them and turned half away. It was a mere glance, a flash, but it was an involuntary confession that she understood his feelings and did not dare to give them opportunity. What further meaning it conveyed he could only wish he knew.
"Yonder is uncle," she murmured. "Poor old man, I know he's tired!" and she almost ran to meet General DeKay.
Reynolds watched her go tripping down the gentle slope, through the stunted wire grass and tufts of sedge, wearing on her hat his spray of mistletoe. She looked like a mere girl, slim and svelt, whose movements were as light and free as the wind. She had won over his dog and it trotted away beside her, looking up into her face. He felt his heart throbbing heavily, and something like a tender mist gathered in his eyes. An almost uncontrollable desire to go swiftly after her and clasp her in his arms took possession of him. Would he ever get so near her again? Would she ever again give him a look like that which was now pictured so vividly in his memory? Ah, those serious, tender, earnest eyes, that low, gentle, haunting voice! Would those sweet, half-sad lips ever meet his with a kiss of unquenchable love? He stood there actually trembling with the stress of his suddenly-generated emotions, an underglow of passion showing in his bronzed face.