was on both their faces, and he met her eyes with that luminous glance which seemed to compel hers. “It would be very difficult for me to tell you what I think of you,” he said deliberately, but with a humorous kindness in his voice.

Diana drew back; she was not sure that she was annoyed. It was new, it was almost delightful to meet a primitive person like this. She could not be sure of social banalities here; he might say something new, something that stirred her pulses at any moment. It was an alarming but distinctly pleasurable sensation, this excursion into another sphere; it was almost as exciting as stealing pears. She looked at him with sparkling eyes.

“Couldn’t you try?” she asked daringly, and felt a tremulous hope that he would, though she could not[51] believe it possible that he would calmly cross the social Rubicon again, and make her feel that all men were and are “of necessity free and equal.”

[51]

“You do not really wish me to try,” he retorted; “to you this is an adventure, and I”—he smiled, but a deeper emotion darkened his eyes—“I am the dancing bear.”

Her cheeks reddened yet more deeply, and her breath came quickly. What had she done? Opened the way for a dilemma? This man would not be led; he was a new and alarming problem. She was trying to collect her thoughts to answer him, to put back the old tone of trivial banter, to restore the lost equilibrium, but happily she was spared the task. The tempest had lulled unnoticed, while they talked, and they were suddenly aware that the shop-door had opened and closed again, and some one was coming toward them. The next moment Dr. Cheyney appeared at the threshold, and Diana sank back into the shelter of the old chair with a feeling of infinite relief.

[52]

V

HALF an hour later Caleb Trench was helping his two guests into the doctor’s old-fashioned, high-topped buggy.

“That’ll do, Caleb; I’ve got her safely tucked in,” Dr. Cheyney said, as he gathered the reins up and disentangled them from old Henk’s tail. “I reckon Henk and I can carry her all right; she isn’t any more delicate than a basket of eggs.”

Diana smiled in her corner of the carriage. “Thank you again, Mr. Trench,” she said gently; “it’s nice to have some one considerate. Dr. Cheyney has always scolded me, and I suppose he always will.”

“Think 

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