SON OF THE WIND
know what it meant. She stood there, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands in front of her. "Did you say you would?" His voice sounded with such a short note that she looked frightened.
"No—I didn't; but I couldn't say I would not, either, you see. I didn't know what to do. It wasn't fair! He knew I didn't mean I would do such a thing as that. But he believes I will now, after what I promised. He believes he can make me." She held her hands locked, and looked at him beseechingly. "I don't think he can hold me to it—do you?"
Carron began to shake with laughter. "No, my dear—never! You can be sure he won't even try." He seized her, and, in an access of wild spirits, whirled her. "Don't be troubled by that for a moment. I'll look after him!" The sight of her perplexed face struggling with a smile, because she saw, since he laughed, something must be amusing, sent him off again. He would have liked to wring the wretched Ferrier's neck, but the thing was infernally funny. Blanche, confessing the awful wrong she had done him; with her naive compunctions for keeping her word to that little black hound, who had so secretly, shamefully broken his to her! She had never been so dear nor so funny to Carron as now, her hands lost in his, her cheeks like satin—exquisite surfaces to touch—and all surrounded by that
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