"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Nothing."
But I went off and sat down apart.
"What's the matter?" she insisted, coming over and standing in front of me. "Did I hurt you?"
"No," I said. "But we mustn't wrestle like that. We aren't children any more."
She threw up her head and began to make fun of me and my new long trousers. But I interrupted her.
"Margot! Margot! Don't you understand?"
I took hold of her hands and pulled her down beside me and kissed her. It was the first time. I am sure she did not understand what I meant—I was not clear about it myself. But she fell suddenly silent. And while I sat there with my arm about her, I saw a vision of Mary's home and the warm joy of it. Margot and I would have a home like that; not like the Father's.
I was under the spell of some dizzying emotion which none of our grown up words will fit. The emotion, I suppose, comes but once, and is too fleeting to have won a place in adult dictionaries. It was painful and awesome, but as I walked home I was very happy.
V