who had taken possession of him. But it was love that had taken possession of him, that had made him more velvety and less nervous than she had ever seen him, and that had made him come alive.
It did rain, and the kerosene stove did smell, but it would have taken more than such material trials to depress them. Nor did they get bored with the living at close quarters, because they knew how to be quiet and how to let each other alone. And because the open air life made them both sleepy it was possible for them, highly strung though they were, to share the same tent at night.
As they packed up Valerie felt the month had been the most beautiful thing she had ever known and because she felt that she was the more enraged at what happened soon after they got back.
V
About the time the lovers went to the Otamatea there began to leak out in Auckland rumours concerning their friendship. As usual no one knew where the nods and suggestions and shrugs of the shoulders began, whether they arose out of the visits of Dargaville people to relatives in the city or from hints in letters. But by devious ways they got to the Lorrimer family and so to the Carrs. At the first breath Doris Lorrimer had written to Bob for the truth of the matter, and he had replied at once with a loyally positive statement that it was all nonsense, and that he ought to know. But this had no effect on the rumours.
Davenport Carr was worried. He was ready to excuse any wildness, any independence on the part of his daughter except the one unpardonable sin, that of getting mixed up publicly with the wrong man. And from his point of view Dane was the wrong man, much as he admired him.
