It was an incident Miss Bella loved to recall. No man could be really in love with a girl he had said that to.
But some months later, Hildegarde was obliged, according to the code, to report that Cheviot had been “going on” again.
Bella insisted on having all the “horrid details.”
“It was last night at the taffy pulling. You know how we’d all been laughing at his stories of Miss Monk meeting the Carters’ black cow—”
“Yes, yes.”
“Well, I was laughing so I couldn’t stop, and it was so warm in that room the candy was melting. You remember he said—”
“Oh, yes,” said Bella, with feeling, “I remember. He said you must come and pull with him.”
“—out in the porch where the candy and I would cool off.”
“And you went.”
“And he made more jokes on the way out. I begged him not to talk any more, for I’d got into a silly mood and everything he said made me laugh. ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘I labor under the fatal disadvantage of the funny man, but I could make you serious you know.’ And then—then—he had the impertinence—to kiss me.”