And I'm very
impatient to do it."
He followed her to the veranda; she seated herself in the broad swing,
and moved so that her invitation to him was unmistakable. Then when he
had taken the place beside her she turned toward him very frankly, and
he looked up to encounter her beautiful direct gaze.
"What is disturbing our friendship?" she asked. "Do you know? I don't. I
went to my room after luncheon and lay down on my bed and quietly
deliberated. And do you know what conclusion I have reached?"
"What?" he asked.
"That there is nothing at all to disturb our friendship. And that what I
said to you on the beach was foolish. I don't know why I said it; I'm
not the sort of girl who says such stupid things--though I was
apparently, for that one moment. And what I said about Gladys was
childish; I am not jealous of her, Captain Selwyn. Don't think me silly
or perverse or sentimental, will you?"
"No, I won't."
She smiled at him with a trifle less courage--a trifle more
self-consciousness: "And--and as for what I called you--"
"You mean when you called me by my first name, and I teased you?"
"Y-es.
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