Then they sat leaning against the gate, she idly plucking sun-faded primroses, he brooding upon the nearness of her hand. In such universal placidity it could not be wrong to hold that hand wasting itself amid small energies. Without looking into her eyes, without turning his gaze from the great tranquil water before him, Michael took her hand in his so lightly that save for the pulsing of his heart he scarcely knew he held it. So he sat breathless, enduring pins and needles, tolerating the uncertain pilgrimage of ants rather than move an inch and break the yielding spell which made her his.
“Are you holding my hand?” she asked, after they had sat a long while pensively.
“I suppose I am,” said Michael. Then he turned and with full-blooded cheeks and swimming eyes met unabashed Kathleen’s demure and faintly mocking glance.
“Do you think you ought to?” she enquired.
“I haven’t thought anything about that,” said Michael. “I simply thought I wanted to.”
“You’re rather old for your age,” she went on, with an inflection of teazing surprize in her soft voice. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” said Michael simply.
“Goodness!” cried Kathleen, withdrawing her hand suddenly. “And I wonder how old you think I am?”
“I suppose you’re about twenty-five.”
Kathleen got up and said in a brisk voice that destroyed all Michael’s bravery, “Come, let’s be getting back. Norah will be thinking I’m lost.”