“Oh!” she breathed.
“And when you have declined it, on the very proper ground of our too slight acquaintance, I will take my turn at declining. I will decline the house. Then, if you are obdurate, it will become an asylum. Don’t be obdurate. Pretend to take the house and——”
She looked at me rather piteously.
“Very well,” she said, “I will pretend to take the house, and when it is restored——”
“We’ll spin the penny.”
So before the waiting relations the house was adjudged to my cousin Selwyn. When the restoration was complete I met Selwyn at the sundial. We had met there often in the course of the restoration, in which business we both took an extravagant interest.
“Now,” I said, “we’ll spin the penny. Heads you take the house, tails it comes to me.”
I spun the coin—it fell on the brick steps of the sundial, and stuck upright there, wedged between two bricks. She laughed; I laughed.
“It’s not my house,” I said.
“It’s not my house,” said she.