“It’s quite hopeless to try and please you,—and I who fondly believed I was going to make such an impression on you with my grand manner!”
“Now, Miss Flattery, you don’t take me in like that. There were others present, and—you didn’t know I was coming.”
“Father told me,” she said abruptly. “Let’s get out of this hothouse atmosphere. How about a ramble into the glen? There’s not enough snow to bother us. Shall we?”
“Agreed.”
Well bundled up, we struck out over the frozen swamps for the solitudes of the hills, and as we went a curious diffidence fell between us.
“David, it’s you who are the stranger,” she said suddenly. “You are changed, much changed.”
“In what way?”
“Your eyes are terribly critical of things you don’t like. You—you rather intimidate me. Please be a little kind in your judgments.”
“I am not aware—”