But--he will!" Her eyes glowed darkly again, and her
voice had a strange, hard little note in it. "I've been ... training
him," she added. "Tell me--why are you going to the Nest?"
It was a point-blank, determined question, with still a hint of
suspicion in it; and her eyes, as she asked it, were the clearest,
steadiest, bluest eyes he had ever looked into.
He was finding it hard to live up to what he had expected of himself.
Many times he had thought of what he would say when he found this girl,
if he ever did find her; but he had anticipated something a little more
conventional, and had believed that it would be quite the easiest matter
in the world to tell who he was, and why he had come, and to tell it all
convincingly and understandably. He had not, in short, expected the sort
of little person who stood there against her bear--a very difficult
little person to approach easily and with assurance--half woman and half
child, and beautifully wild. She was not disappointing. She was greatly
appealing. When he surveyed her in a particularizing way, as he did
swiftly, there was an exquisiteness about her that gave him pleasureable
thrills. But it was all wild. Even her hair, an amazing glory of tangled
curls, was wild in its disorder; she seemed palpitating with that
wildness, like a fawn that had been run into a corner--no, not a fawn,
but some beautiful creature that could and would fight desperately if
need be.
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