“Do tell me,” he said; “I’m wild to know.”
He took her hand and laid it on his arm. For that little while she was certainly his and his alone, and no man had a better claim to her. “Go on and tell me,” he repeated.
“There is one big reason and there are lots of little ones. Which will you have first?”
“The little ones, please.”
“Then, listen; you are like a baby because you are impatient, because you are spoilt, because when you want anything you think that you must have it, and because you like to be walked with.”
“Are those the little reasons,” he said when she paused; “and what’s the big one?”
“The big one,” she said slowly; “Oh, I’m afraid that you won’t like the big one!”
“Perhaps it will be all the better for me if I don’t,” he laughed; “at any rate I beg and pray and plead to know it.”
“What a dear boy!” she laughed. “If you want to know as badly as that, I’d have to tell you anyhow, whether I wanted to or not. It’s because I’m so much the oldest.”
“Oh!” said Jack, much disappointed. “Is that why?”