“That isn’t fair,” he complained, making his way swiftly down, and satisfying himself by a peep about the angle commanding her point of the rock that she had, indeed, vanished. Sadly he descended to his own nook—and jumped back with a half-suppressed yell.
“You needn’t jump out of your skin on my account,” said Miss Polly Brewster, with a gracious smile. “I’m not a devilkin.”
“You are! That is—I mean—I—I—beg your pardon. I—I—”
“The poor man’s having another bashful fit,” she observed, with malicious glee. “Did the bold, bad, forward American minx scare it almost out of its poor shy wits?”
“You—you startled me.”
“No!” she exclaimed, in wide-eyed mock surprise. “Who would have supposed it? You didn’t expect me down here, did you?”
Thereupon she got a return shock.
“Yes, I did,” he said; “sooner or later.”
“Don’t fib. Don’t pretend that you knew I was here.”
“W-w-well, no. Not just now. B-b-but I knew you’d come if—if—if I pretended I didn’t want you to long enough.”