"
A spark lit itself in her eyes.
"I wonder you didn't send your groom instead," she flashed out quickly.
"It would have saved you the trouble."
Coventry was silent a moment, while a slow flush rose under his sun-tanned
skin.
"I think perhaps I deserved that," he admitted at last. His glance met and
held hers. "Will you at any rate try to believe I had a good reason for
doing what I did?"
She hesitated.
"But--then why have you come now? What's happened to the 'good reason'?"
"I've scrapped it," he said tersely. Then, almost as though he were
arguing the matter out with himself, he added: "A man can take risks
if he likes--if the game's worth the candle."
"And--is this particular game--worth the candle?"
A sudden smile broke up the gravity of those deep, unhappy eyes of his.
"I can't answer that question--yet."
Ann was silent. The sense of constraint left her and an odd feeling of
contentment took its place. He was no longer cold and distant and aloof--in
the mood to dispatch a groom with a message of inquiry! The friend in him
was uppermost.
"I think yon deserve a thorough good scolding," he went on presently.
"What possessed you to attempt bathing in a rough sea like that?
Seriously"--speaking more earnestly.
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