"Like her? Oh, of course I like the dear creature! Who wouldn't? And I like him too." She turned round, smiling a little. "He's so nice, and large, and clean, and direct, and obvious, and simple, you know. I like him just as I like a great rosy apple."
"Hum! I don't eat many of those, do you?"
She laughed, but rather reluctantly. "Perhaps that's more your fault than the apple's. Still I agree. A bite now and then. But they're mostly only to dress the table."
"Why don't you want her to come?"
May sat down and fidgeted with a nick-nack on the table.
"Don't you think being forgiven's rather tiresome work?" she asked. "They don't mean that, I know, but I can't help feeling as if they did."
"I don't see why you should."
She looked full at him for a moment. "No, I didn't suppose you would see it," she said. "Don't stand there, come and sit here,—near me. I've written you three letters, but you don't seem to understand yet that I want to see you." He took the chair near her to which she had pointed; she looked at him, evidently with both pleasure and amusement. "You don't look the least as if you'd been electioneering," she told him in an admiring congratulatory tone.
"I've had the egg-marks brushed off," he explained with the insincere gravity that he knew she liked.
"Will they brush off? Will they always brush off?" she asked, her voice low, her hands nursing her knee, her eyes on his.