But being neither a coward nor a weak, hesitating idealist, when he deliberately took his seat beside her he as deliberately made up his mind to accept his fate, whatever it might be, then and there.
Perhaps there was something of this in his face.

"I thought yo' were looking a little white, co'nnle," she said quietly, "and I reckoned we might sit down a spell, and then take it slowly home.

Yo' ain't accustomed to the So'th'n sun, and the air in the hollow WAS swampy." As he made a slight gesture of denial, she went on with a pretty sisterly superiority: "That's the way of yo' No'th'n men.

Yo' think yo' can do everything just as if yo' were reared to it, and yo' never make allowance for different climates, different blood, and different customs.

That's where yo' slip up." But he was already leaning towards her with his dark earnest eyes fixed upon her in a way she could no longer mistake.