"
"For yours, Miss Mortimer," he answered grimly.
"That's very kind of you," she rejoined. "And why?"
Again he gave that slight lift of the shoulders that she remembered so
well.
"You know the proverb about touching pitch?"
"Some people like pitch," said Cynthia.
"Not clean people," threw back West.
"No?" she said. "Well, perhaps not. Anyway, it doesn't apply in this
case. So I sha'n't drop you, Mr. West, thank you all the same!
Good-night!"
She offered him her hand with a gesture that was nothing short of regal.
And he--because he could do no less--took it, gripped it, and went his
way.
"Isn't he rude?" murmured Cynthia; and she said it as if rudeness were
the highest virtue a man could display.
VI
The early winter dusk was falling upon a world veiled in cold, drifting
rain. Away in the distance where the castle stood, many lights had begun
to glimmer. It was the cosy hour when sportsmen collect about the
fireside with noisy talk of the day's achievements.
The man who strode down the long, dark avenue towards the bailiff's
house smiled bitterly to himself as he marked the growing illumination.
It was four days since Cynthia Mortimer had extended to him the hand of
friendship, and he had not seen her since. He was, in fact, studiously
avoiding her, more studiously than he had ever avoided any one in his
life before. His daily visits to the castle he now paid early in the
morning, before Babbacombe himself was dressed, long before any of the
guests were stirring.
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