Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/40

26 her most intimate friend only a few days earlier; but now, as she stood observing this stranger, a completely irrational in explicableinexplicable [sic] impulse disconcerted her; she was conscious that her heart was pounding, colour was coming to her cheeks and forehead and, as Eric Hedon spoke to her, she offered him her hand and seemed to herself actually to seize his, as she said:

"Will you tell me all of that story and sing that song again with me in the dark before the fire sometime? I mean—I mean—" she stammered as she realised what she had said. "It should be told that way, shouldn't it?"

His fingers in hers did not linger an instant too long or press upon hers differently because she had thus forgotten herself. "It is the storm song of the Suwanese of the mountains of southern Sumatra," he replied to her simply. Not only his words but his tone accepted her attraction as having been solely to the song and not to him at all. And the next moment—after this display of herself which must have made her flee instantly from another