"
To his surprise Rose frowned. "But why not tell her?" she said. "Surely
she has a right to know!"
He smiled and shook his head. "Pardon me! No one has the smallest right
to know. Would you say that of yourself if you cared for someone who did
not care for you?"
She blushed under his eyes suddenly and very vividly, and in a moment
turned from him. "Ah, but that is different!" she said. "A woman is
different! If she gives her heart where it is not wanted, that is her
affair alone."
He did not pursue his advantage; he liked her for the blush.
"Isn't it rather an unprofitable discussion?" he said gently. "Suppose we
get to our game of Patience!"
And Rose acquiesced in silence.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE KNIGHT IN DISGUISE
A long, curling wave ran up the shingle and broke in a snow-white sheet
of foam just below Dinah's feet. She was perched on a higher ridge of
shingle, bareheaded, full in the glare of the mid-June sunlight. Her
brown hands were locked tightly around her knees. Her small, pointed face
looked wistfully over the sea.
She had been sitting in that position for a long time, her green eyes
unblinking but swimming in the heat and glare. The dark ringlets on her
forehead danced in the soft breeze that came over the water. There was
tension in her attitude, the tension of deep and concentrated thought.
Into the midst of her meditations, there came a slow, halting step.
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