Let's walk on along the bluffs."
They turned and moved away from the lights, slipping down into the
darkness of the channeled ravines and emerging onto the luminous
highlands. The solemnity of the night, its brooding aloofness in which
they held so small a part, chilled the girl's high self-reliance.
Among her fellows, in a setting of light and action, she was all proud
independence. Deprived of them she suffered a diminution of confidence
and became if not clinging, at least a feminine creature who might some
day be won. Feeling small and lonely she insensibly drew closer to the
man beside her, at that moment the only connecting link between her and
the living world with which her liens were so close.
The lover felt the change in her, knew that the barrier she had so
persistently raised was down. They were no longer mistress and slave,
but man and maid. The consciousness of it gave him a new boldness.
The desperate daring of the suitor carried him beyond his familiar
tremors, his dread of defeat. He thrust his hand inside her arm,
timidly, it is true, ready to snatch it back at the first rebuff.
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