"I do know—it's—it's exactly the same with me."
"Don't they like you being at home?"
"Rather!—they like it better than I deserve. But I don't fit in."
"And you've nowhere else to go?"
"I don't want to go anywhere else."
Tony looked mystified.
His eyes were shining straight into hers, and they seemed to be asking her something, pleading, beseeching. She found a strange feeling invading her, a feeling that had sometimes surged up in her heart when she saw a dying animal, or a bird fluttering against cage-bars. But this time there was a new intensity in it, and a stifling sense of pain. She suddenly put out her hand and laid it on his—then drew it shyly away.
The sky had flushed to a fiery purple behind the turrets of Brambletye. A mysterious glow trembled on the ivy. The birds were twittering restlessly, and every now and then a robin uttered his harsh signal note. Nigel rose to his feet.
"You mustn't be late home, or your parents will get anxious."
"We've had such a ripping picnic—better than if I'd gone to Fairwarp."