“What’s the color of her eyes?” he asked presently.
“Don’t know; it was dusk when I saw her. I expect it’s the same as Ruthita’s.”
“Who is she?”
“Met her in Sneard’s garden—Pigtails called her ‘cousin’ just now.”
“She’s called Fiesole! Pretty name. How it suits her.”
“Not prettier than Ruthita,” I said.
He sat up and grinned at me. “Who’re you getting at? You wanted me to say all that half-an-hour ago in the playground; now I’ve said it. I can think she’s pretty, can’t I, and still love Ruthita best?”
“But you oughtn’t to love her at all,” I expostulated with a growing sense of indignant proprietorship.
“Look here,” explained the Bantam seriously, “you’re jealous. That’s the way I felt about you when you told me that you weren’t Ruthita’s brother; I quite understand. But if I’m to marry Ruthita, I shall be your brother-in-law. Sha’n’t I? And if you marry Fiesole, she’ll be my sister-inlaw. Won’t she? Well then, I’ve got a right to be pleased about her.”
I took him at his word and told him everything that had happened and all that I knew about her. Continually he would break in with feverish words of surprise and flattery, leading me on still further to confess myself. In the magic world of that summer’s afternoon no difficulties seemed insuperable. Married we could and would be. Parents and schoolmasters only existed for one purpose—to prevent boys and girls who fell in love from marrying: that was why grown-ups had all the money. In a natural state of society, where men lived in the woods, and wore skins, and carried clubs, these injustices would not happen.