ht make a difference?" Tom asked.

"The older servants would tell you that it does."

"And you agree with them?"

Damaris had a moment of defective courage.

"I would rather not discuss the subject, cousin Tom," she said and moved
away down over the shifting shingle.

At first her progress was sober, even stately. But soon, either from the
steep, insecure nature of the ground or from less obvious and material
cause, her pace quickened until it became a run. She ran neatly, deftly,
all of a piece as a boy runs, no trace of disarray or feminine
floundering in her action. More than ever, indeed, did she appear a fine
nymph-like creature; so that, watching her flight Tom Verity was touched
alike with self-reproach and admiration. For he had succeeded in
asserting himself beyond his intention. Had overcome, had worsted her;
yet, as it occurred to him, won a but barren victory. That she was
alienated and resentful he could hardly doubt, while the riddle he had
rather meanly used to procure her discomfiture remained unanswered as
ever, dipped indeed only deeper in mystery. He was hoist with his own
petard, in short; and stood there nonplussed, vexed alike at himself and
at circumstance.

A soft wind, meanwhile, caressed him, as hesitating, uncertain what to do
next, he glanced out over the smiling sea and then back at the delicate
shore line, the white house, the huge evergreen trees and brilliant
flower garden. A glamour covered the scene. It was lovely, intimately,
radiantly lovely as he had lately declared it. Yet just now he grew
distrustful, as though its fair seeming cloaked some subtle trickery and
deceit. He began to wish he had not undertaken this expedition to
Deadham; but gone straight from the normal, solidly engrained
philistinism of dear old Canton Magna to join his ship. In coming here he
had, to put it vulgarly, bitten off more than he could chew. For the
place and its inhabitants seemed to have a disintegrating effect on him.
Never in all his life had he been such a prey to exterior influences,
been twisted and turned to and fro, weather-cock fashion, thus. It was
absurd, of course, to take things too seriously, yet he could not but
fear the Archdeacon's well-intentioned bit of worldliness and his own
disposition to court whatever family prejudice pronounced taboo, were in
process of leading him a very questionable little dance.

Reaction, however, set in before long, as with so lively, light-hearted a