Page:Son of the wind.djvu/241

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WISDOM SET AT NAUGHT

"Then she doesn't know," Carron said, quite gravely. So they disposed of caution and experience.

"But I don't think she'll mind so much now, when she gets used to the idea," Blanche told him. "What did she say to you afterward?"

"Nothing. You wicked girl—to make her, when she hates me!"

"She doesn't hate you, she only has a silly idea about you; that you are a terrible, dangerous person."

"O, ho, and didn't you have some such idea yourself?"

"No." They could laugh together about it now, so much had grown between them, through the night, while they had not seen each other. "That was quite different."

"Then what made you run away?"

"O, that was because—"

"Yes—because?"

She drooped, looking down. "It wasn't you, it was myself I thought was terrible. I felt as if I had given myself away, just made a gift of myself, to some one who didn't want me."

"Think of my taking you in that way! Think of my taking you tolerantly, forbearingly! Why I—" He would have shown her again how he would take her, but it was "hands off" with her yet. She would

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