She looked wistfully across the river.
Jack watched her. His heart ached for her, and he bent nearer.
"Forgive me for causing you any unhappiness," he said. "Will you?"
"Yes."
Oh! where was her vengeance now? So far beneath her!
"These four days have been the most wretched days to me, the most unhappy I have ever lived," he said. The emotion in his voice brought the soft colour to her face. She did not answer; she would have if she had wished to check him.
"I will never again, as long as I live, give you one moment's—displeasure." He was going to say "pain," but he dared not.
Still she was silent, her idle white fingers clasped in her lap, her eyes fixed on the river. Little by little the colour deepened in her cheeks. It was when she felt them burning that she spoke, nervously, scarcely comprehending her own words: "I—I also was unhappy—I was silly; we both are very silly—don't you think so? We are such good friends that it seems absurd to quarrel as we have. I have forgotten everything that was unpleasant—it was so little that I could not remember if I tried! Could you? I am very happy now; I am going to listen while you amuse me with stories." She curled up against a tree and smiled at him—at the love in his eyes which she dared not read, which she dared not acknowledge to herself. It was there, plain enough for a wilful maid to see; it burned under his sun-tanned cheeks, it softened the firm lips. A thrill of contentment passed through her. She was satisfied; the world was kind again.
He lay at her feet, pulling blades of grass from the bank and idly biting the whitened stems. The voice of the Lisse was in his ears, he breathed the sweet wood perfume and he saw the sunlight wrinkle and crinkle the surface ripples where the water washed through the sedges, and the long grasses quivered and bent with the glittering current.