"I don't see how, but it does!"
Cornelia gave him a sharp side-look, to make out if he was sincere; but
his face at the moment was in shadow.
"Perhaps because it pricked your finger," said she.
She had not spoken loud, and was almost startled when his reply showed
he had heard her. There was again that expression of marvellous
efficiency and power in his face and bearing, but combined with one
partly doubt and partly shrewd scrutiny.
"I plucked the bud all the same," he remarked. Cornelia, for some
reason, felt a little provoked and a little frightened. He wasn't
entirely unsophisticated after all; and she felt quite uncertain where
the ignorance ended and the knowledge began. She put the bud in her
hair, and they walked on, Bressant being now at her side, instead of
behind. The path was hardly wide enough for two, and now and then she
felt her shoulder touch his arm. Every time this happened, she fancied
her companion gave a kind of involuntary start, and looked around at her
with a quick, inquiring expression--fancied, for she did not meet his
look, being herself conscious of a sort of irregularity of the breath
and pulse attending these contacts, which she could not understand, and
did not feel altogether at ease about.
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