"I thought I'd scare you," he remarked grimly.
"You didn't. I—I was scarcely prepared—such a nonsensical thing to say! Why—why I might as well ask you if you are in—in—"
"In love with you? You wish to know, Yellow-hair?"
"No, I don't," she replied hastily. "This is—stupid. I don't understand how we came to discuss such—such—" But she did know and she bit her lip and gazed across Isla Water in silent exasperation.
What mischief was this that hid in the Scottish sunshine, whispering in every heather-scented breeze—laughing at her from every little wave on Isla Water?—counselling her to this new and delicate audacity, imbuing her with a secret gaiety of heart, and her very soul fluttering with a delicious laughter—an odd, perverse, illogical laughter, alternately tremulous and triumphant!
Was she in love, then, with this man? She remembered his unconscious head on her knees in the limousine, and the snow clinging to his bright hair—
She remembered the telephone, and the call to the hospital—and the message. … And the white night and bitter dawn. … Love? No, not as she supposed it to be; merely the solicitude and friendship of a woman who once found something hurt by the war and who fought to protect what was hers by right of discovery. That was not love. … Perhaps there may have been a touch of the maternal passion about her feeling for this man. … Nothing else—nothing more than that, and the eternal indefinable charity for all boys which is inherent in all womanhood—the consciousness of the enchantment that a boy has for all women. … Nothing more. … Except that—perhaps she had wondered whether he liked her—as much as she liked him…. Or if, possibly, in his regard for her there were some slight depths between shallows—a gratitude that is a trifle warmer than the conventional virtue—
When at length she ventured to turn her head and look at him he seemed to be asleep, lying there in the transformed shadow of the lawn umbrella.
Something about the motionless relaxation of this man annoyed her.
"Kay?"
He turned his head squarely toward her, and 'o her exasperation she blushed.