He felt the greater surprise when, suddenly turning, she raised toward him her odd, enticing, pointed face, and the friendly mischief of her eyes.
"The best ?" she echoed, in the same half-whisper as when she had flattered him, that afternoon in the dusky well of the pagoda stairway.
"The very best friend?
Don't you think you have a better ?" Rudolph stared.
"Oh, you funny, funny boy!" she cried, with a bewildering laugh, of delight and pride.

"I hate people all prim and circumspect, and you--You'd have flown back there straight at him, before my--before all the others.

That's why I like you so!--But you must leave that horrid, lying fellow to me." All unaware, she had led him along the blinding white wall of the Forrester compound, and halted in the hot shadow that lay under the tiled gateway.

As though timidly, her hand stole up and rested on his forearm.
"So sorry." The confined space, narrow and covered, gave to her voice a plaintive ring.

"That's twice you protected me, and I hurt you .-- You _are_ different.