We will have a pleasant ride and a good long talk together, and I'll show you a ruin and a distant view of the villa where I have been staying." She held out her hand with a frank girlish smile, and even a girlish anticipation of pleasure in her brown eyes.

He bent over her slim fingers for a moment, and withdrew.
When he was in his own room again, he was conscious only of a strong desire to avoid the colonel until after his ride with Yerba.

He would keep his word so far as to abstain from allusion to her family or her past: indeed, he had his own opinion of its futility.

But it would be strange if, with his past experience, he could not find some other way to determine her convictions or win her confidence during those two hours of companionship.

He would accept her terms fairly; if she had any ulterior design in her advances, he would detect it; if she had the least concern for him, she could not continue long an artificial friendship.