"I'm glad you think so," she flung back over her shoulder, "but I am not so sure. I really think that it would be better for Tidda if she were left more to her own devices—she has plenty—but I just can't do it."
We had got down to the shore, and Elizabeth turned to me.
"I am always saying things," she said, "that I don't mean. It is one of the results of too much freedom."
"So am I," I replied, "and this is one of them."
And Elizabeth looked at me queerly, and laughed suddenly, and looked away. I wondered if she understood. I wondered further about her. A reputation for unconsidered speech is the best of protections for secrets. I did not believe that she was generally guilty of unconsidered speech. And we had come to the clam beds, but the bank was too wet to sit on, and we stood around until I found some stones that were dry, and we sat on the stones in a row, like three crows. Eve said nothing to Tidda and the Sands girl, but watched them as they pulled off their stockings. And, Tidda having trouble with hers, as usual, Eve got up from her stone and helped her.
While Eve was busy with stockings, I spoke.
"Miss Radnor," I said, "what—"
She was gazing fixedly at the water over the clam beds—there was about a foot of it—and her thoughts were far away. But at the sound of her name she started almost imperceptibly, and looked at me, and smiled.
"My name is Elizabeth," she said, interrupting. "Perhaps you didn't know it. Yes, that is a hint."
Her eyes were like deep pools under a summer sun, and all sorts of colors played over them, flashing and sparkling gently and merrily, so that there was no telling what depths lay beneath, or what in the depths—except humor. They seemed to be looking always for a joke, and usually finding one too good to tell. What else they were looking for I did not know, but there was something.