"What are you laughing at?" she asked him.
"My boots—and yours. You must have funny little feet."
She half withdrew her hand.
"I think you are the rudest boy I have ever met," she said.
"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," Percival declared.
She told him in her precise way: "You are rude, although you are nice in some ways. I think I have never known any one stare at me so frightfully as you stare. I have seen you often staring."
Percival gave for explanation: "If I stare, it's because I've never seen any one like you."
She gave the slightest toss of her chin.
He went on: "Do you know what I call you? I call you Snow-White-and-Rose-Red."
He saw the blush shades on her cheek very slightly darken. It sounded a pleasant thing to be called. But she said: "It sounds stupid; what is it?"