'You are angry with me,' Gerald remarked dismally.

'Why should I be angry?'

He raised his eyebrows, detached a bit of loosened wood from the seat,
and skipped it over the water. 'Well, to find me behaving like a child
again.'

'I should reserve my anger for more important matters,' said Althea. She
was angry, or she hoped she was, for, far more than anger, it was misery
and a passion of shame that surged in her. She knew now, and she could
not hide from herself that she knew; and yet he cared so little that he
had not even kept his promise; so little that he had stayed behind to
kiss that most indecorous woman. If only she could make him think that
it was only anger.

'Ah, but you are angry, and rather unjustly,' said Gerald. His eyes were
seeking hers, rallying, pleading, perhaps laughing a little at her. 'And
really, you know, you are a little unkind; I thought we were
friends--what?'

She forced herself to meet those charming eyes, and then to smile back
at him. It would have been absurd not to smile, but the effort was
disastrous; her lips quivered; the tears ran down her cheeks. She rose,
trembling and aghast. 'I am very foolish. I have such a headache. Please
don't pay any attention to me--it's the heat, I think.'

She turned blindly towards the house.

The pretence of the headache was, he knew it in the flash of revelation
that came to him, on a par with Frances's ankle--but with what a
difference in motive! Grave, a little pale, Gerald walked silently
beside her to the woods. He did not know what to say. He was a little
frightened and a great deal touched.

'Mr. Digby,' Althea said, when they were among the trees again--and it
hurt him to see the courage of her smile--'you must forgive me for being
so silly. It is the heat, you know; and this headache--it puts one so on
edge. I didn't mean to speak as I did. Of course I'm not angry.'

He was ready to help her out with the most radiant tact. 'Of course I
knew it couldn't make any real difference to you--the way I behaved.
Only I don't like you to be even a little cross with me.'

'I'm not--not even a little,' she said.

'We are friends then, really friends?'

His smile sustained and reassured her. Surely he had not seen--if he
could smile like that--ever so lightly, so merrily, and so gravely too.
Courage came back to her. She could find a smile as light as his in
replying: 'Really friends.'

CHAPTER XIV.

Gerald, after Althea had gon