At the sound of his voice she turned and her face changed. "Did I startle you?" he asked.
"No," she smiled at him. "Only I was thinking about you, and there you were." There was no coquetry in her tone; she stated the fact frankly and simply. "Do you remember how you put Toby in here, and how Diogenes hated it?"
"I remember how you looked under the lantern."
"Oh,"--she had not expected that,--"do you?"
"Yes. But I had seen you before. You were standing on a rock with holly in your arms. I saw you from the train throw something into the river. I have often wondered what it was."
"I didn't want to burn my holly wreaths after Christmas. I hate to burn things that have been alive."
"So do I. Eve would say that we were sentimentalists. But I have never quite been able to see why a sentimentalist isn't quite as worthy of respect as a materialist--however, I am not here to argue that. I want you to ride with me to the ridge. To see the foxes by moonlight," he further elucidated. "Run in and get ready. I am to take some horses up for the others."
She rose and reached for her lantern. "The others?" she looked an inquiry over her shoulder.
"Eve and her crowd. They are still at Crossroads."
She stood irresolute. Then, "I think I'd rather not go."
She told him the truth bravely. "I am a little afraid of women like that."
"We are people of two worlds, Dr. Brooks--and they feel it."
His conversation with Eve recurring to him, he was not prepared to argue. But he was prepared to have his own way.
"Isn't your world mine?" he demanded. "And you mustn't mind Eve. She's all right when you know her. Just stiffen your backbone, and remember that you are the granddaughter of Cynthia Warfield."
After that she gave in and came down presently in a shabby little habit with her hair tied with a black bow. "It's a good thing it is dark," she said. "I haven't any up-to-date clothes."
As they went along he asked her to go to the hunt breakfast on Monday.
"I can't. School opens and my work begins."
"By Jove, I had forgotten. I shall be glad to hear the bell. When I am riding over the hills it seems to call--as it called to my grandfather and to be saying the same things; it is a great inspiration to have a background like that to one's life. Do you know what I mean?"