"Would you care to canoe, Mr. Green?" she asked casually, turning to him with a slight blush which she could not control.
Green blushed, too, and consented in a low voice.
As they were departing, Miss Vining rode up on horseback, leading another horse, which De Lancy Smith, at her request, nimbly mounted; and away they galloped down a cool forest road, everybody looking after them.
Miss Darrell cut out and roped Willett presently and took him to walk in the direction of a pretty cascade.
A charming girl, a Miss Trenor, arrived with a hammock, book, and bon-bons, and led Carrick away somewhere by virtue of a previous agreement, and the remaining girls pretended not to care, and strolled serenely off in pretty bunches, leaving Langdon standing, first on one foot, then on the other, waiting to be spoken to.
Abandoned, he wandered about the tennis court, kicking the balls moodily. Tiring of this, he sat down under a tree and twirled his thumbs.
Once or twice some slender figure passed, glancing brightly at him, and he looked as shyly receptive as he could, but to no purpose. Gloom settled over him; hunger tormented him; he gazed disconsolately at the yellow ribbon in his button-hole, and twiddled his thumbs.
And all the while, from the shadow of a distant cave, Ethra was watching him with great content. She knew he was hungry; she let him remain so. By absent treatment she was reducing him to a proper frame of mind.
The word had been passed that he was Ethra's quarry; mischievous bright eyes glanced at him, but no lips unclosed to speak to him; little feet strolled near him, even lingered a moment, but trotted on.
His sentiments varied from apathy to pathos, from self-pity to mortification, from hungry despair to an indignation no longer endurable.