Nevertheless, seated so near each other, they were very quiet. Hurlstone
could not tell whether it was the sea or the flowers, but the dress of
the young girl seemed to exhale some subtle perfume of her own freshness
that half took away his breath. She had scraped up a handful of sand,
and was allowing it to escape through her slim fingers in a slender rain
on the ground. He was watching the operation with what he began to fear
was fatuous imbecility.
"Miss Keene?--I beg your pardon"--
"Mr. Hurlstone?--Excuse me, you were saying"--
They had both spoken at the same moment, and smiled forgivingly at
each other. Hurlstone gallantly insisted upon the precedence of her
thought--the scamp had doubted the coherency of his own.
"I used to think," she began--"you won't be angry, will you?"
"Decidedly not."
"I used to think you had an idea of becoming a priest."
"Why?"
"Because--you are sure you won't be angry--because I thought you hated
women!"
"Father Esteban is a priest," said Hurlstone, with a faint smile, "and
you know he thinks kindly of your sex."
"Yes; but perhaps HIS life was never spoiled by some wicked woman
like--like yours.
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