"You cannot," said Buddy. "I've changed a good deal in a great many ways, but I haven't got to the point where I like to be kissed after breakfast yet."
"You used to write pretty affectionately from those old trenches."
"There was an ocean between us then, and it was perfectly safe."
"I think men are the funniest things," Elizabeth said. "It isn't that they don't want to be loved——"
"No, it isn't," said Buddy. "So tell Mother to keep the coast clear, will you, and then come back. No, don't come back. I'll watch for Ruth and let her in. No, you watch for Ruth and let her in. You bring her in here, and then get out unless I tell you to stick around. See?"
"You can't tell me that before her."
"I can tell anybody anything before her."
"All right," Elizabeth said, "but—but I'm scared, Buddy."
"You—you go to the deuce," her brother said, and only then did Elizabeth realize the strain under which he was labouring.
It was with a face nearly as white as Buddy's own that she opened the door to Ruth a few minutes later.