Apparently their effect was disconcertingly the same. He was
conscious of a feeling that was far from a normal calm.

"So you were all right?" he half whispered. "Those steps, last
night, you know, made me horribly afraid for you--"

"But, yes, I am all right."

As excitement gained upon him, a constraint was falling upon her.
They were both remembering that moment, overlooked in the rush of
recognition, when they had parted in this place, when he had had the
temerity to clasp and kiss her.

Aimée was standing rigid and wary, ready for flight at the first
fear. She told herself that she had only come through pride, the
pride that insisted upon humbling his presumption. She would let him
see how bitterly he had offended.... She had only come for this, she
told herself--and to see if he had come.

If he had _not_ come! That would have dealt a sorrily humiliating
blow.

But he was here. And reassured and haughty, repeating that she was
mortally offended, her spirit alternating between pride and shame
and a delicious fear, she stood there in the shrubbery, fascinated,
like a wild, shy thing of another age.

"That was old Miriam," she explained constrainedly. "My father had
come in--with unexpectedness."