"I couldn't have let you walk home by yourself."
"As if I wasn't always by myself."
Her voice defied, almost repelled him; but her face turned to him with its involuntary surrender.
He edged himself in beside her with a sudden protective movement, so that his shoulders shielded her from the contact of the passers by. But the pace he set was terrific.
"You've no idea, Owen, how odd you look careering through the streets."
"Not odder than you, do I? You ought to be swinging up a mountain-side, or sitting under an oak-tree. That's how I used to see you."
"Do you remember?"
"I remember the first time I ever saw you, fifteen years ago. I'd gone up the mountain through the wood, looking for wild cats. I was beating my way up through the undergrowth when I came on you. You were above me, hanging by your arms from an oak-tree, swinging yourself from the upper ledge down on to the track. Your hair—you had lots of hair, all tawny—some of it was caught up by the branches, some of it hung over your eyes. They gleamed through it, all round and startled, and there were green lights in them. You dropped at my feet and dashed down the mountain. I had found my wild cat."
"I remember. You frightened me. Your eyes were so queer."
"Not queerer than yours, Nina. Yours had all the enchantment and all the terror of the mountains in them."