“You’re pretty free, upon my word. Who told you you might call me by my name?”
“Why, you wouldn’t have me call you by any one else’s? It’s pretty enough, even for you.”
“Oh, go away with you!” she cried. “I won’t listen.”
At that moment Duke put his head in at the door.
“The governor’s calling for you,” he said. “Hurry up.”
“Well, they’re ready,” said the girl—“here,” and she thrust the packet into my hands, with a little blushing half-impudent look at me.
I forgot all about her in a few minutes. My heart was too full of one only other girlish figure to find room in itself for a rival. What was Zyp doing now?—the wonderful fairy child, whose phantom presence haunted all my dreams for good and evil.
As I walked from the office with Duke Straw that afternoon—for, as it was Saturday, we left early—a silence fell between us till we neared Cringle’s shop. Then, standing outside, he suddenly stayed me and looked in my face.
“Shall I hate or love you?” he said, with his mouth set grimly.
He made a gesture toward his deformed lower limbs with his hands, and shrugged his shoulders.