"Go straight ahead!" he called
back. "Olga is waiting for you at the house."
He came up with Muriel on the edge of the fairy stream. Her face was
flushed and her eyes nervous, but she met him bravely. She had known
in her heart that he would follow. As he stopped beside her, she
turned with a little desperate laugh and held out her hand.
"Is it peace?" she said rather breathlessly.
She felt his fingers, tense as wire, close about her own. "Seems like
it," he said. "What are you afraid of? Me?"
She could not meet his look. But the necessity for some species of
understanding pressed upon her. She wanted unspeakably to conciliate
him.
"I want to be friends with you, Nick," she said, "if you will let me."
"What for?" said Nick sharply.
She was silent. She could not tell him that her sure defence had
crumbled at a touch. Somehow she was convinced that he knew it
already.
"You never wanted such a thing before," he said. "You certainly
weren't hankering after it the last time we met."
Her cheeks burned at the memory. Again she felt ashamed. With a great
effort she forced herself to speak with a certain frankness.
"I am afraid," she said--"I have thought since--that I was rather
heartless that day. The fact was, I was taken by surprise. But I am
sorry now, Nick.
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