Paul reached the bank in a stroke, and climbed back into the meadow. The instant he gained his feet she rushed at him and boxed his ears furiously. Paul laughed with pleasure. He had had his head punched by every fighting peer within a mile of home, and the soft little hands fell like a sort of fairy snowflakes.
‘Oh, you wicked, wicked, wicked boy!’ she raged, stamping her foot at him. ‘You can go in again as soon as ee want to. I won’t be so fullish as to call ee out.’
‘D’ye mean it?’ asked Paul, suddenly grim again.
‘No,’ she said, fawning on him with her hands, but doing it at a distance for fear of his wet clothes. ‘But, Paul, child, you’ll catch your death. Run home.’
‘I’m not a child,’ said Paul. ‘I’m within two years as old as you are, May. I say, May———’
‘Oh, do run home!’ she coaxed him. ‘Do ee, now, Paul, for my sake.’
‘I’m off,’ said Paul. ‘Ask me anything like that, and I’ll walk into fire or water.’
‘Why, Paul,’ said the little Vanity, turning her face down, and looking up at him past her beautiful lashes and arched brows, ‘whatever makes you talk like that?’
‘Because it’s the simple truth,’ said Paul ‘You try me, May.’
‘But why is it the simple truth?’ she asked.