'Hazel' he said softly.
She looked up, listening.
'I am curious about something.'
'I cannot say I shall be happy to gratify your curiosity, until I know what it is about.'
'It concerns the question, how you are going to ask my pardon for the thought that has been in your head?'
'I am not going to do it.'
'You ought. And you know that what you ought, you always, sooner or later,do.'
'Ought I?' said Wych Hazel. 'Is it one of your prerogatives to have your pardon asked without cause?' But then she laid her face against his, in a way that was extremely womanish and not a bit self-asserting.
Rollo stood still and added no more. He had read what was going on in her thoughts, and he knew that she was mistaken; but he also knew that words prove nothing, and as before, he waited. Only as at last he let her out of his arms, he said lightly,
'You will not lose anything in the long run, Hazel. People never do, by doing right.'