She looked down, quite grave again, and pulled a bit of fern from the bank, and crushed it in her hand, and then smelled it.
"Don't you like sweet fern?" she asked, holding it out to him. "I love it!"
"That's why you crush it, I suppose," said Lawrence.
"It doesn't smell sweet unless you do. Oh—I see! You were beginning to play the game. Very well. Why should we lose time about it? But I wish it were a little better defined. What is it we're going to do? Won't you explain? I'm so stupid about these things. Are we going to flirt for a bet?"
"What a speech!"
"Because it's a plain one? Is that why you object to it? After all, that's what we said."
"We only said we'd play," answered Lawrence. "Whichever ends by caring must agree to marry the winner, if required. But I'm afraid the time is too short," he added, more gravely. "I've only a week more."
"Only a week!" exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of disappointment. "Why, I thought there was ever so much more. That isn't nearly time enough."
"We must play faster—and hope for 'situations,' as they call them on the stage."
"Oh—the situation is bad enough, as it is," answered the young girl, with a change of manner that surprised her companion. "If you only knew!"