Gardiner started, dropped her arm, stepped back out of sight among the trees.
"Of course. You naturally would. I ought to have understood before."
"Oh, I didn't mean that!"
"Oh, I think you did. It would hardly do, would it?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Dorothea. She hesitated; he could see her visibly struggling with herself; then she raised her head. Whatever quinine of common-sense he might administer to himself, there was no possibility of mistaking the expression in those pansy-brown eyes. She might have wavered before; she had made up her mind now.
"I didn't mean that," she said. "I never thought of such a thing. It was only that—that—people do talk, if they see things—and suppose you asked me to go for a walk with you again—"
"Do you mean that if I did, you would?"
He got no answer. Lettice had just come out to the gates of the hotel to taste the morning sun, with the kitten squirming on her shoulder; and at sight of her Miss O'Connor ran away.