Another pause, during which she looked down. Then Carrie raised her eyes again, and looked at him steadily.
Dudley turned away, muttering something under his breath. But the next moment he faced her again.
"And you are waiting to take my answer back?"
"Mrs. Higgs said there would be no answer."
"And you're going straight back with it to your granny, whatever it is?" asked Dudley, with the same sharp tone of cross-examination.
"No. I am not going back to her. But I shall give the message to some one who is."
There was another pause, longer than any of the previous ones. Then Dudley said, shortly:
"You need not wait here any longer. I am going to see her myself."
Carrie had got upon her feet in the automatic manner she had maintained throughout the interview.
"Going to the wharf, are you?" she said, with the first sign of human interest she had shown. "Oh, very well."
There was something noticeable in her tone, something which made Max suspicious and anxious on his friend's account. He came round the table with rapid steps, touched Dudley's shoulder, and said, in a low voice:
At the sound of his voice Carrie started violently, and looked up at Max, staring with eyes full of wonder and something very like delight. The rigidity with which she had held herself, the automatic manner, the hard, off-hand tone, all disappeared at once; and it was a new, a transformed Carrie, the fascinating, wayward, irresistible girl he had remembered, who gave him a smile and a nod, as she said, in a voice full of the old charm he remembered:
"You! Is it you?" Then, breathlessly, with a change to anxiety in her voice: "And are you going, too?"
"Yes. I'm going with my friend," said Max, as he came forward and held out a hand, into which she put hers very shyly; "from what I remember of my visit to your place, I think two visitors are better than one."
"I don't know whether granny will think so," said Carrie, still in the same altered voice.
She was shy, modest, charming. All her femininity had returned, and both the young men felt the influence of the change.
Dudley, who had instinctively stepped back to make way for his friend, was watching them both with surprise and uneasiness.
"We must risk Mrs. Higgs's displeasure," said Max, dryly, "unless, indeed, Dudley," and he turned to his friend, "you will give up this expedition altogether, as I strongly advise."