Fay picked up a stalk of grass and began tickling her cheek with it. For the first time in my life I became envious of the vegetable kingdom. "Should you call me a person with a warm heart?" I asked.
"I think you are very fond of Miss Kingsnorth," replied Fay demurely.
"That's different: it's just nature and habit to be fond of your own people. You see, you are not the only one who can quote. What I want to know is, do you consider that I have a warm heart?"
"How on earth can I tell its temperature?"
"Better than anybody. You hold it in the hollow of your hand."
"Then it can't be very warm or else it would burn my fingers and I should drop it," laughed the girl; "so that question answers itself."
"Then allow me to ask another. Have you got what people call a warm heart?"
She shrugged her slender shoulders. "Temperature ninety-eight, point four—absolutely normal. So no further bulletins will be issued." And with that, for the time being, I had to be content.
"I do love a west wind," Fay said, after a few minutes of blissful silence, "don't you? I think it is the nicest wind we have, combining the softness of the South with the bracingness of the North: like people with sharp tongues and sweet tempers."
I agreed with this—as indeed I was ready to do with any idea to which Fay gave utterance; for Love is no whit behind Conscience in the manufacture of cowards.