'There is no need for pardon; the fault, if there were any, was mine
alone. It was I, remember, who asked you to come here and who
introduced and conducted this melancholy business. I have asked you
several things, Leonard, and one more I will add--'tis only one:
that you will forget!'

As she moved away, her dismissal of the subject was that of an
empress to a serf. Leonard would have liked to answer her; to have
given vent to his indignation that, even when he had refused her
offer, she should have the power to treat him if he was the one
refused, and to make him feel small and ridiculous in his own eyes.
But somehow he felt constrained to silence; her simple dignity
outclassed him.

There was another factor too, in his forming his conclusion of
silence. He had never seen Stephen look so well, or so attractive.
He had never respected her so much as when her playfulness had turned
to majestic gravity. All the boy and girl strife of the years that
had gone seemed to have passed away. The girl whom he had played
with, and bullied, and treated as frankly as though she had been a
boy, had in an instant become a woman--and such a woman as demanded
respect and admiration even from such a man.



CHAPTER XII--ON THE ROAD HOME