Читать книгу The Ball of Fire онлайн

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The rector flushed as if he had been struck, and he turned to Gail with that cold look in his green eyes.

“That is too deep a subject to discuss here, but if you will permit me, I will take it up with you at the house,” he quietly returned, and there was a dogged compulsion in his tone.

“I shall be highly interested in the defence,” accepted Gail, with an aggravating smile.

There seemed to be but very little to say after that, and they walked silently up the hill together towards the yellow camp fire, fuming inwardly at each other. Near the top of the hill, her ermine scarf came loose at the throat, and, with her numbed hands, she could not locate the little clasp with which it had been held.

“May I help you?” offered the rector, constraining himself to politeness.

“Thank you.” She was extremely sweet about it, and he reached up to perform the courtesy. The rounded column of her neck was white as marble in the moonlight, and, as he sought the clasps, his fingers, drawn from his woollen gloves, touched her warm throat, and they tingled. He started as if he had received an electric shock, and, as he looked into her eyes, a purple mist seemed to spring between them. He mechanically fastened the clasps, though his fingers trembled. “Thank you,” again said Gail, and he did not notice that her voice was unusually low. She went on over to the group gathered around the fire, but the Reverend Smith Boyd stood where she had left him, staring stupidly at the ground. He was in a whirl of bewilderment, amid which there was some unreasoning resentment, but beneath it all there was an inexplicable sadness.