ey stand for?
She longed intensely to know--sure they were in some sort a symbol, a
token, not without special significance for herself. But shyness and a
quaint disposition, dating from her childhood, to pause and hover on the
threshold of discovery, thus prolonging a period of entrancing,
distracting suspense, withheld her. She dared not ask--in any case dared
not ask just yet; and therefore took up his words in their literal
application.

"Indeed, you haven't talked too long," she assured him, as she went over
to the tiger skin before the fire-place, and standing there looked down
into the core of the burning logs. "We have only just begun to talk, so
it isn't that which has tried me. But--if you won't misunderstand--pray
don't--the thought of--of you, and of all that which lies between us, is
still very new to me. I haven't quite found you, or myself in my relation
to you, yet. Give me time, and indeed, I won't disappoint you."

Faircloth, who had followed her, put his elbows on the mantelshelf, and
sinking his head somewhat between his shoulders, stared down at the
burning logs too.

"Ah! when you take that tone, I'm a little scared lest I should turn out
to be the disappointment, the failure, in this high adventure of ours,"
he said under his breath.

"So stay, please," the young girl went on, touched by, yet ignoring, his
interjected comment. "Let me get as accustomed as I can now, so that I
may feel settled. That is the way to prevent my being tired--the way to
rest me, because it will help to get all my thinkings about you into
place.--Yes, please stay.--That is," she added with a pretty touch of
ceremony--"if you have time, and don't yourself wish to go."

"I wish it! What, in heaven's name, could well be further from any wish
of mine?" Faircloth broke out almost roughly, without raising his eyes.
"Do you suppose when a man's gone thirsty many days, he is in haste to
forego the first draught of pure water offered to him--and that after
just putting his lips to the dear comfort of it?"

"Ah! you care too much," Damaris cried, smitten by swift shrinking
and dread.

Faircloth lifted his head and looked at her, his face keen, brilliant
with a far from ignoble emotion.

"It is not, and never will be possible--so I fancy"--he said, "to care
too much about you."

And he fell into contemplation of the glowing logs again.

But Damaris, seeing his transfigured countenance, hearing his rejoinder,
penetrated,