'Mr. Falkirk thinks there is room for improvement,' said Wych Hazel, with some coldness; 'but your words seem to point the other way. Perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me at once all that you think it needful I should hear in the connexion.'
'You need not take that tone,' he said; 'but perhaps I _must_ displease you. Miss Kennedy, I have always thought of you as one who would never permit a liberty to be taken with her.'
'I am happy that we agree for once,' she said, with a lift of the eyebrows and a voice to match. 'It is precisely the way in which I have always thought of myself.'
'Follow that out!' said he half laughing, and at the same time clasping a little closer the hand he held.
'Well--I have followed it out all my life. I never do, Mr. Rollo.'
'Not knowingly. But-- How shall I tell you!' said he, in a sort of despair. And the old horse found it was necessary for him to move on.
'It must be said!' he broke out again, 'and there is no one but me to do it. Miss Hazel, you allowed liberties to be taken with you to-night.'
The little hand he was holding shrank perceptibly. Not twitching itself away, but as it were withdrawing itself into itself, and away from him. Otherwise she sat absolutely still.
'Unconsciously,' he went on. 'You did not know it. The pleasure of the play kept you from knowing what it implied.'
'As if they could, without my knowing it!' she exclaimed. 'As if they would!'--
'Well,' said Wych Hazel, 'look back and think! And I find the most extreme deference, and--nothing else that touches the question.'
He drew a sort of short, impatient sigh, and waited a moment. Then leaned over towards her again and spoke slowly.
'Six weeks ago,' he said, 'two little hands would not come near enough to my shoulder to take the kitten from it. And I loved them for the distance they kept.'
The girl drew suddenly back, freeing her hand now with a swiftness that told of a deep hurt somewhere. For a moment she did not speak--then only a breathless--
'When have I shortened the distance?' But the words were defiant with pain, not anger. And Rollo on his part remained perfectly still and perfectly silent, not even seeming to know how the old horse was going to please himself.