Margery gave a long sigh and ate one of the fallen mulberries. She would have given anything to be able to suggest something else. In appearance she was so like David that if brother and sister had dressed in the other’s clothes, and corrected the discrepancy of hair and broken front tooth, either might have passed a frontier with the passport of the other.
“Well, I’ve suggested heaps of things, and you say they are all rot,” she said. “I’ll play anything you like. We used to have rather fun playing cricket. Wouldn’t you like to play cricket?”
“Oh, what’s the use?” said David. “I should hit you into the Deanery garden all afternoon, and always bowl you first ball. I took eight wickets against——”
Margery had a good deal of David’s spirit, as well as his bodily aspect.
“I know, you told me that,” she said. “Twice.”
David had a certain sense of being ill-used, common to his sex at his age.
“Oh, all right,” he said with dignity. “But you used to be interested in my things.”
Margery had probably never heard of women’s rights; she only knew that her beloved David was rather unfair sometimes. On these occasions she never by any chance took refuge in pathos.
“Silly gubbins,” she said. “You told me twice, and I was interested even the second time. David, do buck up! Go and smoke a cigarette, won’t you? It’s quite disgusting of you to smoke, and some day father will smell it and there’ll be trouble. But it used to make you feel—feel starched.”
“Given up smoking,” said David morosely. “Ages ago.”