He brushed his face against her carls. “It isn’t that. It’s not that I’m sulky.” Her hands fluttered to his lips that he might kiss them. “It’s—it’s only that I want you, and I’m afraid I may lose you.”
She laughed softly. “But I wouldn’t lose you. I wouldn’t let anybody, not even my beautiful mother, make me lose you. I would worry and worry and worry, till she brought me back.” She lowered her face and looked up at him slantingly. “I can make people do most anything when I worry badly.”
He smiled at her exact self-knowledge. She knew that she was forgiven and wriggled into his arms. “Why do you want me? I’m so little and not nice always.”
“I don’t know why I want you, unless——”
“Unless?” she whispered.
“Unless it’s because I’ve been always lonely.”
She frowned, so he hastened to add, “But I know I do want you.”
“When I’m a big lady do you think you’ll still want me?”
“Ah!” He tried to imagine her as a big lady. “You’ll be proud then, I expect. I once knew a big lady and she wasn’t—wasn’t very kind. I think I like you little best.” Outside it was growing dark. The rain beat against the window. The musty smell of old finery in boxes fitted with the melancholy of the sound.
“I’m glad you like me little best, because,” she drew her fingers down his cheek, “because, you see, I’m little now. But when I’m a big lady, I shall want you to like me best as I am then.”