"You _are_ a difficult body. Never mind. Come along!" she insisted with pretty imperiousness.
They seated themselves with their backs to the fire and at a respectful distance from it, where they could watch the jetting blades of light that ringed the far-off headland. Whitaker reclined on an elbow, relapsing into moody contemplation. The girl drew up her knees, clasped her arms about them, and stared thoughtfully into the night.
Behind them the fire flamed and roared, volcanic. All round it in a radius of many yards the earth glowed red, while, to one side, the grim, homely façade of the farm-house edged blushing out of the ambient night, all its staring windows bloodshot and sinister.
The girl stirred uneasily, turning her head to look at Whitaker.
"You know," she said with a confused attempt to laugh: "this is really no canny, this place. Or else I'm balmy. I'm seeing things--shapes that stir against the blackness, off there beyond the light, moving, halting, staring, hating us for butchering their age-old peace and quiet. Maybe I'll forget to see them, if you'll talk to me a little."
"I can't talk to you," he said, ungracious in his distress.
"You can't? It's the first time it's been noticeable, then. What's responsible for this all-of-a-sudden change of heart?"
"That's what's responsible." The words spoke themselves almost against his will.
"You're very obscure. Am I to understand that you've taken a sudden dislike to me, so that you can't treat me with decent civility?"
"Surely"--she caught her breath sharply, paused for an instant, then went on--"surely you don't mean the converse!"
"I've always understood women knew what men meant before the men did, themselves." His voice broke a little. "Oh, can't you see how it is with me? Can't you see?" he cried. "God forgive me! I never meant to inflict this on you, at such a time! I don't know why I have...."
"You mean," she stammered in a voice of amaze--"you mean--love?"
"No ... not after what's happened, I presume. You wouldn't have followed--you wouldn't have fought so to save me from drowning--I _suppose_--if you hadn't--cared.... But I didn't know."
She sighed, a sigh plaintive and perturbed, then resumed: "A woman never knows, really. She may suspect; in fact, she almost always does; she is obliged to be so continually on guard that suspicion is ingrained in her nature; but...."