A warm hand slipped into hers and a shy voice whispered, “He made you Himself. I’m certain.”
She gazed at him, at the narrow sloping shoulders and the shining curly head. She felt very much a woman at the moment—years older than the handful of months which at most must separate them. She laid her cheek against his and slid her arm about him. “I’m so glad you’re not a man.”
He stared straight before him. “I shall be soon.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen next birthday.”
She drew him nearer to her. He was so young as that! “How old d’you think I am?”
He searched her face, trying to make her as near his own age as possible, and not to be mistaken. “Sixteen?” he suggested.
“Almost seventeen,” she said; “I’ll soon be twenty, And then——”
“And then,” he interrupted, “I’ll be eighteen—almost a man.”
She withdrew her face from his. “Stupid. I don’t want you to be a man. When you’re a man, I shan’t like you; you’ll become hard and masterful like... like the rest.”