Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/335

Rh His face came up before her now, as she stood with closed eyes—its clear, vigorous lines, the beautiful mouth, the keen eyes and tawny hair. It seemed to her that a year had gone since she left him. All the same, she would not go back until. …

She went on, shaking her head; and moodily wondered, on a sudden, what was Crayven's real idea of her. She had not heretofore cared much what it was. She had liked him, and had taken him as an anodyne to her mental pain. He was the only person near her at present who did not throw her back distressingly upon herself. It was his strength that he was a stranger to her, that he gave her, a new outlook, different ideas, and, perhaps, feelings. With him all her instincts for gaiety, for play, woke again. She had been conscious that she was charming him, that there was an emotional element in their relation, and she had done nothing to guard against it. Nina's protest was not necessary to show her that she had been unconventional. But she had a serene contempt for convention and, at bottom, in spite of her desire to be liked, for other people's opinion of her. In the people she liked, she counted upon enough intelligence to see her for what she was.

But after all, what did she know really about Crayven's intelligence? All that she did know of him went to show that his relations with hu-