"That was just hate and disgust, not fear. And it's horrid to say I bit you, when you know I didn't. But I was afraid, Dick, that you'd have to do something to that huge dwarf-thing, and get hurt—and——"
"Well, I've told you I'll bolt if he shows his face," he repeated, more gently. But seeing her flush and frown angrily, "What's wrong, Amaryllis?" he asked, and drew nearer to her side as they walked.
But she kept the distance undiminished.
"I don't like the way you speak of yourself," she replied hotly. "It makes me feel angry—as if someone else had done it."
"Done what?"
"Lied about you—said you were afraid of a hideous freak out of a circus. You!"
The brown eyes blazed on him with the anger meant for his hypothetic slanderer. And Dick, between the joy with which her annexation of his honour filled him, and his weakened control, found himself on the edge of an explosion of feeling; but brought back common-sense and good-humour to them both with a touch of his antiseptic cynicism.
"Can you swim?" he asked.
"Yes," said the girl, round-eyed.
"If you couldn't, would you jump in after another fool that couldn't?"