easily.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders, turned away abruptly. He strode to the edge of the lake and debated with himself. When he came back to her he was serene though grave. At sight of his expression,[48] which she had eagerly awaited, she shivered. “Rix,” he said—and all the fine frankness and simplicity of his nature were in his eyes and his voice—“it’s lucky for you that I’ve lived a little, or we might be dragging each other into a fearful mess. You think you’ve fallen in love—don’t you?” [48] “I know it, Chang,” she answered, undaunted. “Well, I know you haven’t fallen in love with me. You’ve simply fallen in love with love. Your imagination has been giddied by this little adventure that seems so romantic to you. And the day’ll come when you’ll thank me for having had the sense to understand you and to understand that my own strong liking for you isn’t love, either.” “It’s what I call love,” said she, a solemn, wistful look in the eyes she fixed on him. “Don’t you miss me and think of me all the time when we aren’t together—just as I do? Don’t you come earlier and earlier—just as I do? Didn’t you fight against coming in the rain to-day, just as I did? Weren’t you dreadfully afraid you’d be disappointed, just as I was? And didn’t you simply have to come——” He suddenly lost his temper. “This is too exasperating!” he cried. “I’ve done wrong to let you come here. I was innocent enough in it——” “You couldn’t have kept me away,” she interrupted[49] with a kind of childish glee. “The mischief was done the first day—over the chocolate. Wasn’t it, Chang?—honestly, wasn’t it?” [49] “You’re a nice little girl, but——” She cut him off again: “If you knew how I fought that evening and night and all the next day and night—and how early I started out to find you. Had you begun to hunt for me?” “No,” said he, more curt than convincing. “Then what were you thinking about—that first morning down by the waterfall?” He flushed guiltily. Very poor, indeed, at all kinds of deception was Chang—except, possibly, self-deception. “I watched you for half an hour. You were sketching a face, Chang—instead of the waterfall. Whose face
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