"Please. Yes. You must."
"One night I saw a fellow in the card-room, writing. You could tell by his face it wasn't any business-letter. I felt 'Gad,' if I'd a girl to write to of my own!'"
"I should have thought—-" I hesitated. "I shouldn't have thought it was possible ... for you ... not to have had one..."
"Ah! Now what d'you mean by that?"
"Go on. After you thought 'Gad, if I'd a girl to write to'——?"
"Well, then, sort of desperately, I fished out an old letter-case of mine that I hadn't touched," he told me, "for years. I found—what d'you think?—a bow of blue ribbon. Blest if I hadn't forgotten what it was, at first——"
"Flattering of you——"
—"but I soon remembered, Joan! I'd sneaked it off your plait. D'you remember?"
"Go on, please."
"Well, I began remembering the old days at Mr. Matthews's farm.... The veranda with all our sticks and fishing-boots! The wood-fires. The icicles round the back-kitchen door; you remember? That fox-terrier pup I gave you—he's dead, I expect? And how I used to go out after the beagles with your brothers—what a regiment of chaps we were! And you just the one little girl ... I remembered how I'd looked at you——"