"About what?" Ben asked, with an affectation of ignorance which was not really intended to deceive him.
"'You 'eard,'" he quoted.
She disengaged her hand and laughed her soft laugh.
"I can't think why you're so horrid to me," he said. "What's the matter with me?"
"Nothing, Tommy," she said. "I like you very much. I always have liked you. But I don't want to marry you."
"Don't you want to marry anyone?" he asked.
"No one that I've yet seen," she replied.
"Not either of those book-selling fellows?" he asked.
"Certainly not," she said.
"But you must marry," said Tommy, very earnestly. "Of course you must. It isn't right not to. What's the matter with me, anyway? We've always been good friends; I'm not too poor; I hope I've got something better than the kind of face that only a mother can love. I've got two legs. Why are you so down on me?"