"That's really all, is it? You're not unhappy about anything else? Scott hasn't been bullying you?"
She gasped at the question. "Oh no! Oh no! He wouldn't! He couldn't! I--haven't even seen him today."
He received the information in silence; but in a moment or two he tossed away his cigarette with the air of a man having come to an abrupt resolution.
"And so you're fretting about going home?" he said.
She nodded mutely. The matter would not bear discussion.
"Poor little Daphne!" he said. "It's been a good game, hasn't it?"
She nodded again. "Just like the dreams that never come true," she managed to say.
"Would you like it to come true?" he asked her unexpectedly.
She glanced up at him with a woeful little smile. "It's no good thinking of that, is it?" she said.
"I have an idea we could make it come true between us," he said.
She shook her head. That brief glimpse of his intent eyes had sent a sudden and overwhelming wave of shyness through her. She remembered again the fiery holding of his arms, and was afraid.
He paused in his walk and turned aside to the railing that bounded the side of the track above the steep, pine-covered descent. "Wish hard enough," he said, "and all dreams come true!"
Dinah went with him as if compelled. She leaned against the railing, glad of the support, while he sat down upon it. His attitude was supremely easy and self-possessed.
"Do you know, Daphne," he said, "I've taken a fancy to that particular dream myself? Now I've caught you, I don't see myself letting you go again."
Her heart throbbed at his words. She bent her head, fixing her eyes upon the rough wood upon which she leaned.
"But it's no good, is it?" she said, almost below her breath. "I've just got to go."
He put his hand on her shoulder, and she was conscious afresh of the electricity of his touch. She shrank a little--a very little; for she was frightened, albeit curiously aware of a magnetism that drew her irresistibly.
"Yes, I suppose you've got to go," he said. "But--there's nothing to prevent me following you, is there?"
She quivered from head to foot. That hand upon her shoulder sent such a tumult of emotions through her that she could not collect her thoughts in any coherent order. "I--I don't know," she whispered, bending her head still lower. "They--I don't know what they would say at home."