Part 41 (1/2)
He towered above her, darkly reluctant.
”Do sit down. You must be tired.”
”I am.”
Dubiously he seated himself at a little distance.
”And only your pains for your trouble?”
He nodded.
”I watched you, off and on, from the windows. You might have been looking for a pin, from your painstaking air, off there along the cliffs.”
He nodded again, gloomily. Her comment seemed to admit of no more compromising method of reply.
”Then you've nothing to tell me?”
He pursed his lips, depreciatory, lifted his shoulders not quite happily, and swung one lanky leg across the other as he slouched, morosely eyeing the sheets of sapphire that made their prison walls.
”No. There's no good news yet.”
”And you've no inclination to talk to me, either?”
”I've told you I don't feel--well--exactly light-hearted this morning.”
There was a little silence. She watched him askance with her fugitive, shadowy, sympathetic and shrewd smile.
”Must I make talk, then?” she demanded at length.
”If we must, I suppose--you'll have to show the way. My mind's hardly equal to trail-breaking to-day.”
”So I shall, then. Hugh....” She leaned toward him, dropping her hand over his own with an effect of infinite comprehension. ”Hugh,” she repeated, meeting his gaze squarely as he looked up, startled--”what's the good of keeping up the make-believe? You _know_!”
The breath clicked in his throat, and his glance wavered uneasily, then steadied again to hers. And through a long moment neither stirred, but sat so, eye to eye, searching each the other's mind and heart.
At length he confessed it with an uncertain, shamefaced nod.
”That's right,” he said: ”I do know--now.”
She removed her hand and sat back without lessening the fixity of her regard.
”When did you find it out?”
”This morning. That is, it came to me all of a sudden--” His gaze fell; he stammered and felt his face burning.
”Hugh, that's not quite honest. I know you hadn't guessed, last night--I _know_ it. How did you come to find it out this morning? Tell me!”
He persisted, as unconvincing as an unimaginative child trying to explain away a mischief:
”It was just a little while ago. I was thinking things over--”