“You’re not their wild and woolly daughter-in-law.”
He shifted his position on the grass and sat facing her, with curious, intent eyes. There was something subduing in his regard, as in his strength and grace. “I wonder what I am, really. I wish I knew,—my degree of being accepted as your friend, I mean.”
She was pleasantly conscious of the urgent need to evade the intentness of his eyes, but temporized by mocking. “Don’t try to formulate the abstract. Those are your words, and if you don’t follow your own advice you’ll be in the predicament Katie would be in if she tried to go up in a balloon.”
The forthcoming meeting had unnerved her more than she cared to admit. An attack of stage-fright had made her say “in a minute” when he had suggested returning. To that was added a twinge of vertigo, as though she felt herself standing on a precipice from which force of circumstances would make her presently retreat, but which for that very reason had an indefinable lure. The eyes and hands and arms and thighs of her companion were challenging her. Meanwhile, in her subconsciousness, the talk of “in-laws” had set in motion a tune from The Mikado, and as she flicked her boots she sang a paraphrase:
“They married their son,—
They had only got one,—
To their daughter-in-law elect.”
The ruse by no means succeeded in suppressing the rebellious desire to look over the precipice. “I wonder if they did right,” she said.
Dare looked away, and she breathed more freely, hoping yet fearing that he would immediately resume his disturbing, overpowering intentness. “Sometimes,” he said, “I resent it; at other times I’m thankful.”
As he was still looking away she ventured an emotional step nearer. “Do you mind explaining that cryptic remark?”