"Why, you need not, then," he reassured her abruptly, waiving the possibility of insistence, as much as to say it was no concern of his.
"I might walk to the observatory," she suggested, "and--and--I need not detain you then."
"In view of three bandits in slouched hats, although all on the back-track--and although I am convinced that it was but their astral apparitions with which you were favored--I will venture to intrude my society until I can see you to the Briscoe bungalow."
"Oh, there's no intrusion," she rejoined petulantly. "You must know I couldn't mean that!"
"I never know what you mean, I am sure!" he said with that tense note of satire. Then he paused with a vague wonder at himself thus to trench on the emotional phases between them that must be buried forever. Remembering her own allusion that morning, her cry of regret and appeal, he was apprehensive of some renewal of the topic that he had thus invited, and he began to move hastily down the slope, supporting her with care, but with a certain urgency too. He was obviously eager to terminate the conversational opportunity, and when it was requisite to pause to rest he improved the respite by beckoning to one of the stablemen passing near, bound toward a pasture in the rear of the hotel with a halter in his hand, and ordering him to investigate the building to discover any signs of intrusion.
The man hearkened in patent surprise, then asked if he might defer the commission till he had harnessed Fairy-foot, Mr. Briscoe having ordered out the dog-cart and his favorite mare.
"Plenty of time, plenty of time! We can't hope to overtake them, with the start they have already. Just see if there are any signs of intrusion into the place and report. And now, Mrs. Royston, shall we move on?"
The observatory was a structure strong but singularly light and airy of effect, poised on the brink of the mountain, above a slant so steep as to be precipitous indeed, terminating in a sheer vertical descent, after affording such foothold as the supporting timbers required. A great landscape it overlooked of wooded range and valley in autumnal tints and burnished sunset glow, but this made only scant impression on the minds of both, looking out with preoccupied, unseeing eyes. The balustrade around the four sides formed the back of a bench, and on this seat Lillian sank down, still feeble and fluttering, painfully agitated, acutely aware that, as she had no obvious physical hurt, the nervous shock she had sustained might scarcely suffice to account for her persistent claim on his aid and attention. Certainly he was warranted in thinking anything, all he would, since her wild, impulsive appeal in the early morning. How had it chanced, that cry from her heart! It was a triumph in some sort for him, unsought, complete, yet so pitiable, so mean, that he did not even care for it. His face was not triumphant; rather, listless, anxious, careworn. He was gazing down toward the bungalow where Briscoe stood at the head of the flight of the veranda steps, drawing on his driving gloves, while Fairy-foot, the fine mare, now resplendent in the least restrictions of harness that might control her bounding spirits and splendid strength, stood between the shafts of the dog-cart on the drive, a groom at her head, holding the bit.