She was quite content. Her head was not high enough to reach his shoulder—it rested on his breast; he tucked away his beard that it might not tickle her face. His own face he laid on her brown hair, or stroked that hair with a big, soft hand. His arm supported her little frame; it was so little and so light that he was afraid to hug it much, for fear he should crush it.
"What a ridiculous mite it is!" he murmured. "If you are tired, Jenny, I can carry you home quite easily."
She said she was not tired.
"But you have been tired, my poor little girl! When I think of what you have been doing, all this hot summer, while I have been loafing around and amusing myself——! However, that won't happen again."
"And yet you never came to the tea-room to see how I was getting on—not for such a long, long time!"
"And don't you know why that was? Mary found me going, and scolded me for it, because she said it was compromising you. It was for fear that I might do that—that only—that I kept away. Whereby, you see, I have always treated you like a lady—from the very beginning. Oh, Jenny, that was an unkind thing to say!"
"But how was I to know? And you were so far above me——"
He put his hand over her mouth.
"But still I do think," she proceeded, when the impediment was removed, "I do think it was cheek and impudence to make so sure. It's like a Sultan and his slave—like Ahasuerus and Esther. And I never did run after you—you know I never, never did!"
Her voice was smothered in his moustache.