They moved on together, slowly and in step. His head was bent, face sullen and uncomfortably flushed. Again she felt the curiously unaccountable glow in her own cheeks responding in pink fire once more; and annoyed and confused she halted and looked up at him with that frank confidence characteristic of her.
"Something has gone wrong," she said. "Tell me."
"I will. I'm telling myself now." She laughed, stole a glance at him, then her face fell.
"I certainly don't know what you mean, and I'm not very sure that you know."
She was right; he did not yet know. Strange, swift pulses were beating in temple and throat; strange tumults and confusion were threatening his common sense, paralyzing will-power. A slow, resistless intoxication had enveloped him, through which instinctively persisted one warning ray of reason. In the light of that single ray he strove to think clearly. They walked to the pavilion together, he silent, sombre-eyed, taking a mechanical leave of his hostess, fulfilling conventions while scarcely aware of the routine or of the people around him; she composed, sweet, conventionally faultless—and a trifle pale as they turned away together across the lawn.
When they took their places side by side in the chair she was saying something perfunctory concerning the fête and Mrs. Ascott. And as he offered no comment: "Don't you think her very charming and sincere.... Are you listening to me, Mr. Hamil?"
"Yes," he said. "Everybody was very jolly. Yes, indeed."
"And—the girl who adores the purple perfume of petunias?" she asked mischievously. "I think that same purple perfume has made you drowsy, my uncivil friend."
He turned. "Oh, you heard that?"
"Yes; I thought it best to keep a sisterly eye on you."