"I've been so very much afraid of you," I answered.
"You afraid of me!" she cried. "Oh, if you only knew how terrified I've been!" She seemed to be seized with an impulse to confidence. "It was terrible coming here to see whether I should do, you know."
"You knew you'd do!"
"Oh, no. Mother always told me I mightn't. She said you were—were rather peculiar."
"I don't know enough about other people to be able to say whether I'm peculiar."
She laughed, but not as though she saw any point in my observation (I daresay there was none), and walked on a few yards, smiling still. Then she said:
"Father will be pleased."
"I hope everybody will be pleased. When you go to Forstadt the whole town will run mad over you."
"What will they do?"
"Oh, what won't they do? Crowds, cheers, flowers, fireworks, all the rest of it. And your picture everywhere!"