`I feel better,' she said.
`Thank you,' he replied. `Great compliment!'
`Oh, my brother!' she laughed.
`H'm! that's snatching back with the left hand what you gave with the right, and no mistake,' he said.
She laughed in amusement at him.
`But what was the matter with you?' he asked. `I know you were brooding something special. I can see the stamp of it on your face yet.'
`I think I will not tell you,' she said.
`All right, hug it,' he answered.
She flushed and bit her lip.
`No,' she said, `it was the girls.'
`What about 'em?' Paul asked.
`They have been plotting something for a week now, and today they seem particularly full of it. All alike; they insult me with their secrecy.'
`Do they?' he asked in concern.
`I should not mind,' she went on, in the metallic, angry tone, `if they did not thrust it into my face--the fact that they have a secret.'
`Just like women,' said he.
`It is hateful, their mean gloating,' she said intensely.
Paul was silent. He knew what the girls gloated over. He was sorry to be the cause of this new dissension.
`They can have all the secrets in the world,' she went on, brooding bitterly; `but they might refrain from glorying in them, and making me feel more out of it than ever. It is--it is almost unbearable.'
Paul thought for a few minutes. He was much perturbed.
`I will tell you what it's all about,' he said, pale and nervous. `It's my birthday, and they've bought me a fine lot of paints, all the girls. They're jealous of you'--he felt her stiffen coldly at the word `jealous'-- `merely because I sometimes bring you a book,' he added slowly. `But, you see, it's only a trifle. Don't bother about it, will you--because'--he laughed quickly--`well, what would they say if they saw us here now, in spite of their victory?'
She was angry with him for his clumsy reference to their present intimacy. It was almost insolent of him. Yet he was so quiet, she forgave him, although it cost her an effort.
Their two hands lay on the rough stone parapet of the Castle wall. He had inherited from his mother a fineness of mould, so that his hands were small and vigorous. Hers were large, to match her large limbs, but white and powerful looking. As Paul looked at them he knew her. `She is wanting somebody to take her hands--for all she is so contemptuous of us,' he said to himself. And she saw nothing but his two hands, so warm and alive, which seemed to live for her. He was brooding now, staring out over the country from under sullen brows. The little, interesting diversity of shapes had vanished from the