Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/36

 conscious of a blunder, or of unexpected knowledge, she tried to add other words:

"I mean, of course—I do not understand—I am looking for Ronny."

"Ronny is quite safe," said Jacynth gravely. "He is still at cricket with Harold. What I have to say does concern him though, a little."

"Concern Ronny!" There was a genuine note of alarm in the girl's fresh voice, and she looked up at Jacynth with a wistful trouble in her eyes. "Concern Ronny! Why, what have you to say about Ronny?"

"Can you give me a few moments?" he asked. "It is quiet here."

He pointed to a pathway more secluded than the rest, a pathway with a rustic garden chair, a deserted pathway.

"Shall we sit here for a minute?" he said, and they walked to the rustic seat, and sat down side by side. There was a curious look of alarm in the hazel-colored eyes, but Jacynth did not notice it, for he was looking down, tracing a word upon the ground with his stick, and the word that he traced was the word he had used but now, Kismet.

"What do you want to say to me?" He could hear a hard ring in her voice, and looking up he saw a hardness in her eyes, and his lips trembled.

"We have been very good friends," he began, and faltered. She caught him up.

"We have been good friends," she said. "If