For a moment she stood thus in
silence, and then her head went high, and she turned her back upon
me as she had upon Hooja. Some of the prisoners laughed, and I
saw the face of Ghak the Hairy One go very black as he looked at
me searchingly. And what I could see of Dian's cheek went suddenly
from red to white.
Immediately after we resumed the march, and though I realized that
in some way I had offended Dian the Beautiful I could not prevail
upon her to talk with me that I might learn wherein I had erred--in
fact I might quite as well have been addressing a sphinx for all
the attention I got. At last my own foolish pride stepped in and
prevented my making any further attempts, and thus a companionship
that without my realizing it had come to mean a great deal to me was
cut off. Thereafter I confined my conversation to Perry. Hooja
did not renew his advances toward the girl, nor did he again venture
near me.
Again the weary and apparently interminable marching became a
perfect nightmare of horrors to me. The more firmly fixed became
the realization that the girl's friendship had meant so much to me,
the more I came to miss it; and the more impregnable the barrier
of silly pride. But I was very young and would not ask Ghak for
the explanation which I was sure he could give, and that might have
made everything all right again.
On the march, or during halts, Dian refused consistently to notice
me--when her eyes wandered in my direction she looked either over
my head or directly through me.
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