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43 that they had lost their keenness with their coldness. He marked joyfully the flush on her face, and did not know that he was flushing himself.

About five feet away he stopped, gazing, or rather staring, at her, and said in a tone of fervent conviction: "Heavens, Olivia! What a beautiful and entrancing creature you are!"

She smiled, flushing more deeply. He stepped forward, took her hand, and held it very tightly.

"Goodness! But I have been impatient for you to come!" he cried.

"I'm not late," she said in her low, sweet, rather drawling voice.

He let go of her hand and said: "I don't know how it is, but I've been as restless as a cat all the morning. I'm never sure that you will be able to come; and the uncertainty worries me."

"But you saw me for three hours yesterday," she said, moving forward.

"Yesterday?" he said, falling into step with her. "Yesterday is a thousand years away. I wasn't sure that you'd come today."

"Why shouldn't I come?" she said.

"Loudwater might have got to know of it and stopped you coming."

"Fortunately he doesn't take enough interest in my doings. Of course, if I didn't turn up at a meal, he'd make a fuss, though why he should make such a point of our having all our meals together