"Who are you?" she asked. "Who are you?"
"I am 'Little Boy Jack' come back to marry you," you began, but something in the wistful, shy girl-tenderness of her face and eyes choked your bantering words right off in your throat.
"Yes, Ladykin," you said, "I have come home, and I am very tired, and I am very sad, and I am very lonesome, and I have not been a very good boy. But please be good to me! I am so lonesome I cannot wait to make love to you. Oh, please, please love me n-o-w. I need you to love me N-O-W!"
Ladykin frowned. It was not a cross frown. It was just a sort of a cosy corner for her thoughts. Surprise cuddled there, and a sorry feeling, and a great tenderness.
"You have not been a very good boy?" she repeated after you.
The memory of a year crowded blackly upon you. "No," you said, "I have not been a very good boy, and I am very suffering-sad. But please love me, and forgive me. No one has ever loved me!"
The surprise and the sorry feeling in Ladykin's forehead crowded together to make room for something that was just womanliness. She began to smile. It was the smile of a hurt person when the opiate first begins to overtake the pain.
"Oh, I'm sure it was an accidental badness," she volunteered softly. "If I were accidentally bad, you would forgive me, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yes, yes, yes," you stammered, and reached up your lonesome hands to her.
"Then you don't have to make love," she whispered. "It's all made," and slipped down into your arms.