She gave a little start. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Give up being so childish, will you try?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said dully. That was very easy to promise, she felt so old, so very much a woman to-night.
[p 57]
]Larrie was only half satisfied with that quiet ‘Yes.’ Where was his little loving eager girl gone who would have done anything in the world once had he asked it, done it gladly and rejoiced at its difficulty, flung her arms round his neck and asked to be tried still more?
Only that spiritless ‘Yes,’ was her answer to-night. He stifled a sigh of bitter disappointment. This was marriage, he supposed.
‘It’s beginning to rain,’ he said heavily, ‘go in.’
She turned to go,—they had been standing for the last few minutes near the old broken seat.
Never yet had they parted after the making up of a quarrel without a kiss, and he would not omit it now.
But he stooped his head in almost an awkward way down to her bent one, and it was not the kiss of a lover.
She merely submitted a drooped cheek to his lips, and went slowly up to the house alone.