"I shall see. Now I must go in."
She held out her hand, I took and retained it.
"Before I leave you, Mrs. Fraser, will you tell me that my society is not distasteful—that you no longer look upon me as an intruder?"
She did not offer to withdraw her hand. It seemed to me, indeed, that she hardly knew I held it.
"No. I am disposed to like you," she replied. "You weren't frank at first; but you have become frank since, and that makes you a pleasant companion. Oh! you will never know my abhorrence of the cant which politeness makes men and women talk. They treat each other like cats—stroke, and stroke, until truth is lost in a general purring. I like truthful people. They need not be insulting: they can always keep back unpleasant knowledge; but they need not lie. Polite people must lie."
I would not argue. It pleased me better to watch the varying expressions of her beautiful face, the soft curvings of her lips, the graceful gestures of her hands, than to contradict.
"Good-bye," she said.
"Until to-morrow," I answered.
Near the gate I halted to pick up the rose-bud she had thrown from her, and pressed it to my lips. Peeping furtively toward the house, I saw she watched me from the window.