The pretty sentiment tickled him. Gloom flew from his brow before sunshine that took its place. He laughed. “You're a dear, dear old thing.”
She gave a whimsical look at him. “I ought to have said at once what I am going to say now: Did you hurt him much?”
“I bashed him!” George said, revelling in it. “I fairly bashed him!”
She snuggled against this tremendous fellow.
II.
It was a park-keeper who, from that opium drug of sweet silence with which lovers love to dull their senses, recalled them to the urgency for action.
The park-keeper led David by one hand, Angela by the other, whence he had found them wandering. Disappointment that their owner was a protected lady instead of a nicely-shaped nursemaid whom by this introduction he might add to his recreations, delivered him of stern reproof at the carelessness which had let these children go astray.
“I would very much like to know,” he concluded, “what their ma would say.”
“My plump gentleman,” said George pleasantly, “meet me at this trysting-place at noon to-morrow, and your desire shall be gratified.”
The park-keeper eyed him; thought better of the bitter words he had contemplated; contented himself with: “Funny, ain't yer?”