"Did we?"
"Well, we got as many, anyhow. I'm hot, aren't you?"
Elizabeth mopped her forehead and smiled by way of answer.
"Look here," Tom said, "there is something I want to ask you, Miss Swift. If you don't like it you just have to say so, and I will understand and not ask you again. I was just wondering if I couldn't call you Elizabeth. Bill he's going to ask Peggy, I mean Miss Farraday, the same thing."
"I didn't know you had been calling me anything," Elizabeth said.
"Well, I haven't. I think last names are rather stiff, you know, and I didn't like to use your first name without permission."
"I'd just as soon have you call me by my first name," Elizabeth said, "if—if only——"
"You've got something in your mind about me that you aren't saying. If you think it's—well—fresh—of me, to ask you that question about first names, you can say so."
"I don't think that's fresh of you," Elizabeth said, "but I—well, I don't feel like talking in any way but a very straightforward and truthful way to-day. The thing I don't like, really, is the way you tried to get acquainted with us. Every time I think of that, I feel as if—well, I wish it hadn't happened, that's all."
"So do I," said Tom Robbins, soberly, "but I'll tell you something. I have never done anything like that before. We just made up our minds that we would, that's all. You know the way you make up your mind to try something that you've seen other people do."