“But you must know!” cried Missy in desperation.
“Why must I?”
“Because this has gone on far too long. And I never meant it to go on at all. No, I give you my oath I only meant to have a lark in the beginning—to have a lark and be done with it! Anyhow I can't keep it up any longer; that's all about it, and—but surely you can guess now, Mr. Teesdale, can't you?”
Again the old man was long in answering. “Yes,” he exclaimed at length, and with such conviction in his voice that Missy grasped her chair-arms tight and sat holding her breath. “Yes, I do see now. You borrowed that money not because you really needed it, but because——”
The girl's groans stopped him. “To think that you can't guess,” she wailed, “though I've as good as told you in so many words!”
“No, I can't guess,” answered David decisively. “What's more, I don't want to. So I give it up. Hush, Missy, not another word! I won't have it! I'll put my fingers in my ears if you will persist. I don't care whether it's true or whether it isn't, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you pitching into yourself when—when——”
“When what?”
“Why, when I've grown that fond of you, my dear!”
“And are you fond of me?” said Missy, in a softened voice that quivered badly. She put her arms once more round the old man's neck, and let her tousled head rest again upon his shoulder. “Are you really so fond of me as all that?”
“My dear, we all are. You know that as well as I do.”