During the long swim she had had time to think, but not to forgive. She stamped her sodden feet, shook out her skirts, and then looked Gerry up and down. With his crisp, light hair; blue eyes, wide apart and well open; and six feet of well-proportioned bulk, Gerry was good to look at, but Alix’s angry eyes did not admit it. They measured him scornfully; but it was not the look that hurt him so much as the way she turned from him with a little shrug of dismissal and started along the shore for camp.
Gerry reached out and caught hold of her arm. She swung around, her face quite white.
“I see,” she said in a low voice, “you want it now.”
Gerry held her with his eyes.
“Yes,” he answered, “I want it now.”
“Why did you yell at me to jump into your horrible boat?”
“I took you for Nance.”
“You took me for Nance,” repeated Alix with a mimicry and in a tone that left no doubt as to the fact that she was in a nasty temper. “And why,” she went on, her eyes blazing and her slight figure trembling, “did you strike me—slap me across the face?”
“Because I love you,” replied Gerry, steadily.
“Oh!” gasped Alix. Her slate-gray eyes went wide open in unfeigned amazement, and suddenly the tenseness that is the essence of attack went out of her body. Instead of a self-possessed and very angry young woman, she became her natural self—a girl fluttering before her first really thrilling situation.