"Why," said Dick, "there's all your previous life. It's a case of inhibition. There was Miss Anne."
"Stop," said Raven, his curiosity over the boy's mind dying in a crash. "Stop right there, Dick; you're making a fool of yourself. Now we'll go to bed."
He got up and waited, and Dick, sulkily, rose too.
"You needn't think," he began, and Raven broke in:
"You needn't think I shall stand another word of your half-baked psycho-deviltries. You can believe what you like. It'll harm nobody but yourself. But you don't talk it here, or out you go. Now!"
The last word meant he was waiting to put out the light and Dick, without another look at him, strode out of the room, snatched his suit-case and went up the stairs. Raven heard the decisive click of his door and, his own heart beating in a quick response to what he knew must happen, turned on the light again and stood there silent, waiting. It did happen. A soft rustle, like a breeze blowing down the stairs, and Nan came in. She had taken off her child's dress, as if to show him she had left their game behind her. The long braids were pinned up, and she wore her dark walking dress. She was paler, much older, and he was renewedly angry with Dick for banishing the Nan that was but an hour ago. Perhaps that Nan would never come back.
"Darling Rookie," she said, so softly that the sound of it could not have got half way up the stairs, "what's it all about?"
"About you, Nan," he answered, and denied himself the darling Nan he had for her. "And being in love. And Dick's wanting you."
"It's more than that," said Nan wistfully. "He's been at you somehow. He's dug ditches across your dear forehead and down your cheeks. What d'he say, Rookie? What d'you say to him?"
Raven shook his head. He had no idea of inviting her into the psycho-analytic ward of Dick's mind.