"Not at all!" she cried, ready to weep with vexation at her complete failure to make him understand. "I'm not a silly, sensitive thing, always trailing my feelings for some one to step on."
"No, dearest—of course not," said he in the same tone as before. "If there weren't so many sail boats about, I'd show you how penitent I am."
"But I don't want you to be penitent."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want you to—I want us to be comrades."
"What a child it is! You girls are brought up to play all the time. But you can't expect a man to be like that. Of course we'll play together. I'd not have wanted to marry you if I hadn't needed you."
"But what am I to do when you can't play?" she asked. "And I'm afraid you won't play very often. That is, I know you won't—and I'm glad you won't—for I'd not care as I do if you were that kind. I didn't realize until this morning. But I do realize now, and—Dick, you don't think of me as just to play with?"
Facing her earnestness, he would not have dared confess the truth. "No, indeed!" said he. "Your head's full of notions to-day. You're not at all like your sweet loving self."
She felt instantly altogether in the wrong. "It's the strangeness, I guess," she said penitently.
"That's it, exactly. But in a few days you'll be all right—and as happy as a bird on a bough."