His heart fluttered
surprisingly inside his breast, during the silence which ensued.
"Surely you must have said everything now that you
wished to say," she observed at last. She had been
studying intently the trodden snow at her feet, and did
not even now look up. The constraint of her manner,
and a certain pleading hesitation in her words,
began at once to restore his self-command. "Do not
talk of it any further, I beg of you," she went on.
"We--we have been lagging behind unconscionably.
If you wish to please me, let us hurry forward now.
And please!--no more talk at all!"
"But just a word--you're not angry?"
She shook her head very slightly.
"And you do know that I'm your friend--your solid,
twenty-four-carat friend?"
After a moment's pause, she made answer, almost in a
whisper--"Yes--be my friend--if it amuses you,"--and
led the way with precipitate steps down the winding road.
CHAPTER XIII
TWO days later, Thorpe and his young people took an early
morning train for Geneva--homeward bound.
It was entirely easy to accept their uncle's declaration
that urgent business summoned him to London, yet Julia
and Alfred, when they chanced to exchange glances after
the announcement, read in each other's eyes the formless
impression that there were other things beside business.
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