“You’re not afraid of girls, are you?” she questioned, and then inconsequently, “I’m awfully lonely.”
There was a note of appeal in her tones, so I found my tongue and asked why she was lonely.
“Because I quarrel with Beatrice—we don’t get on together. Do you know, she thinks all you boys are simply horrid persons?”
“Perhaps we are,” I said. “Most people think that.”
“But I don’t,” she answered promptly.
Gradually my constraint left me. She had an easy kindness and assurance in her manner that I had never found in any other girl. She slipped her hand into mine; made bold by the darkness of the summer-house, I held it tightly.
“I like you. I like you very much,” she whispered.
“But you’ve never spoken to me before. Why should you like the?”
She turned her face to mine, so that our lips were quite near together. “I suppose because I’m a girl.”
The bell for supper began to ring. I pretended not to hear it. Through the roses across the lawn I saw Sneard stand in his study-window, struggling into his gown. Then the window became dark and I knew that he had gone to read evening prayers.