the vague, black shapes,
surrounding him more perfect.

"It will be all right," he tried to reassure her, with a tone of
conviction, speaking into her ear, and of necessity clasping her more
closely than before.

Either the words or the action had a very good effect. He heard a light
sigh of relief. She spoke with a calmed ardour.

"Oh, I knew it would be all right from the first time you spoke to me!
Yes, indeed, I knew directly you came up to me that evening. I knew it
would be all right, if you only cared to make it so; but of course I
could not tell if you meant it. 'Command me,' you said. Funny thing for
a man like you to say. Did you really mean it? You weren't making fun of
me?"

He protested that he had been a serious person all his life.

"I believe you," she said ardently. He was touched by this declaration.
"It's the way you have of speaking as if you were amused with people,"
she went on. "But I wasn't deceived. I could see you were angry with
that beast of a woman. And you are clever. You spotted something at
once. You saw it in my face, eh? It isn't a bad face--say? You'll never
be sorry. Listen--I'm not twenty yet. It's the truth, and I can't be so
bad looking, or else--I will tell you straight that I have been worried
and pestered by fellows like this before. I don't know what comes to
them--"

She was speaking hurriedly. She choked, and then exclaimed, with an
accent of despair:

"What is it? What's the matter?"

Heyst had removed his arms from her suddenly, and had recoiled a little.
"Is it my fault? I didn't even look at them, I tell you straight. Never!
Have I looked at you? Tell me. It was you that began it."

In truth, Heyst had shrunk from the idea of competition with fellows
unknown, with Schomberg the hotel-keeper. The vaporous white figure
before him swayed pitifully in the darkness. He felt ashamed of his
fastidiousness.

"I am afraid we have been detected," he murmured. "I think I saw
somebody on the path between the house and the bushes behind you."

He had seen no one. It was a compassionate lie, if there ever was one.
His compassion was as genuine as his shrinking had been, and in his
judgement more honourable.

She didn't turn her head. She was obviously relieved.

"Would it be that brute?" she breathed out, meaning Schomberg, of
course. "He's getting too forward with me now. What can you expect? Only
this evening, after supper, he--but I slipped away. You don't mind him,