Nicholas Aubray was at least twelve years younger than Philip Stellenthorpe.
She reassured him whole-heartedly and was gratified at the satisfaction in his face, which he displayed with the frankness of a child.
"I thought you and I would be pals, somehow, from the first moment we met. Don't you think it's a great thing to have a pal?"
Lily felt herself to be unreasonable for intensely disliking the word that he had selected.
"That's a word I like—pal!" said Nicholas Aubray, striking one hand into the palm of the other. "Isn't it a splendid, hearty sort of word? That's what I should really like us to be—regular pals."
There was silence between them for the fraction of a moment, and then he added wistfully: "You don't think it's cheek of me to suggest it—you don't think it's absurd, at my age?"
On the instant, his odd, intermittent appeal made itself acutely felt once more.
"I should like it," said Lily, flushing. "I—I think it's an honour for me."
"No, no—it's all the other way round. What a splendid thing life is! Don't you think it's splendid, on a day like this, when one's just struck a bargain like ours? Real pals—that's what you and I are going to be. I can't tell you how much it's going to mean to me. Of course, you've got heaps of friends of your own age already I suppose. Perhaps there's even——"
He paused.