Page:The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916).pdf/51

Rh hesitated, tried to avoid answer without offending her, but already he had affronted her,—"but not now, Miss Dorne."

She stared at him, rebuffed and chilled.

"You mean—" The sentence, obviously, was one she felt it better not to finish. As though he recognized that now she must wish the conversation to end, he got up. She rose stiffly.

"I'll see you into your car, if you're returning there," he offered.

Neither spoke, as he went with her into the next car; and at the section where her father sat, Eaton bowed silently, nodded to Avery, who coldly returned his nod, and left her. Eaton went on into his own car and sat down, his thoughts in mad confusion.

How near he had come to talking to this girl about himself, even though, he had felt from the first that that was what she was trying to make him do! Was he losing his common sense? Was the self-command on which he had so counted that he had dared to take this train deserting him? He felt that he must not see Harriet Dorne again alone. At first this was all he felt; but as he sat, pale and quiet, staring vacantly at the snow-flakes which struck and melted on the window beside him, his thoughts grew more clear. In Avery he had recognized, by that instinct which so strangely divines the personalities one meets, an enemy from the start; Dorne's attitude toward him, of course, was not yet defined; as for Harriet Dorne—he could not tell whether she was prepared to be his enemy or friend.