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id Brook, persuasively. "Then it's making a very good pretence!" laughed Clare. "It's ever so much cooler out of doors. If you'll only come out for one minute, you'll see. Really--I'm in earnest." "But why should I go out if I don't want to?" asked the young girl. "Because I asked you to--" "Oh, that isn't a reason, you know," she laughed again. "Well, then, because you really would, if I hadn't asked you, and you only refuse out of a spirit of opposition," suggested Brook. "Oh--do you think so? Do you think I generally do just the contrary of what I'm asked to do?" "Of course, everybody knows that, who knows you." Brook seemed amused at the idea. "If you think that--well, I'll come, just for a minute, if it's only to show you that you are quite wrong." "Thanks, awfully. Sha'n't we go for the little walk that was interrupted when my people came the other day?" "No--it's too hot, really. I'll walk as far as the end of the terrace and back--once. Do you mind telling me why you are so tremendously anxious to have me come out this very minute?" "I'll tell you--at least, I don't know that I can--wait till we are outside. I should like to be out with you all the time, you know--and I thought you might come, so I asked you." "You seem rather confused," said Clare gravely. "Well, you know," Brook answered as they walked along towards the dazzling green light that filled the door, "to tell the truth, between one thing and another--" He did not complete the sentence. "Yes?" said Clare, sweetly. "Between one thing and another--what were you going to say?" Brook did not answer as they went out into the hot, blossom-scented air, under the spreading vines. "Do you mean to say it's cooler here than indoors?" asked the young girl in a tone of resignation. "Oh, it's much cooler! There's a breeze at the end of the walk." "The sea is like oil," observed Clare. "There isn't the least breath." "Well," said Brook, "it can't be really hot, because it's only the first week in June after all." "This isn't Scotland. It's positively boiling, and I wish I hadn't come out. Beware of first impulses--they are always right!" But she glanced sideways at his face, for she knew that something was in the air. She was not sure what to expect of him just then, but she knew that there was something to expect. Her instinct told her that he meant to speak and to say more than he had yet said. It told her that he
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