He looked down at it in mild surprise; then into her face.
“Isn’t that the strangest thing? I was never so surprised——!”
“But—Mr. Parmley, please let go,” she begged.
“You don’t mean to say that I still have it?” He tried to seem at ease and to speak carelessly, but his heart was pounding as though striving to do the Anvil Chorus all by itself, and his voice wasn’t quite steady.
“I do,” she answered coldly, biting her lip a little. A disk of red burned in each cheek. Her eyes were fixed on his imprisoning hand. “Besides, you are hurting me,” she added, falling back upon the fib which is a woman’s last resource in such a quandary. But he shook his head soberly.
“Pardon me, but that’s impossible. You will observe that my hand is quite loose about yours. Accuse me of unlawful detention, if you wish, but not of cruelty.”
“But—but it is my hand,” she protested faintly.
“Well, that is nothing to boast of,” he replied smiling somewhat tremulously. She had kept her eyes from him all along and he was determined to see them before he gave up. “Look at mine; it’s twice as big!”
The brown lashes fluttered for an instant and Ethan nerved himself for the shock of looking into those violet eyes. He didn’t know what was going to happen, he assured himself in a sudden delicious panic, and he didn’t much care. Probably he would do something awfully rude, something that would frighten and anger her, something for which she would never forgive him! Perhaps the sudden trembling of his hand about hers warned her, for the lashes lay still again. A moment of silence followed, during which Ethan’s heart threatened to choke him. Then all at once the little warm hand ceased tugging and lay limp and inert in his. She turned her head and looked toward the trees and the shade.
“If we are going to hold hands for any length of time,” she remarked coolly, “perhaps we had better sit down and be comfortable.”