It's strange an' pretty....

Reckon I can be just as good a--a friend to you--" "No Isbel, can ever be a friend to me," she said, with bitter coldness.
Stripped of her ease and her soft wistfulness, she stood before him one instant, entirely another girl, a hostile enemy.

Then she wheeled and strode off into the woods.
Jean, in amaze, in consternation, watched her swiftly draw away with her lithe, free step, wanting to follow her, wanting to call to her; but the resentment roused by her suddenly avowed hostility held him mute in his tracks.

He watched her disappear, and when the brown-and-green wall of forest swallowed the slender gray form he fought against the insistent desire to follow her, and fought in vain..