"Oh no!" laughed the young man. "You'd break it off in a week, and then it would be all right."
"Are you going to be rude? Or are you, already? I'm not quite sure."
"Neither. Of course you'd break it off, if we had an agreement to that effect."
"You don't make any allowance for my spitefulness. It would be just like me to hold you to your engagement. Of course you wouldn't live long. We should be sure to fight."
"Oh—sure," assented Lawrence. "That is, if you call this fighting."
"It would be worse than this. But why don't you try? I'm dying to refuse you. I'm just in the humour."
"Why! I thought you said there was danger! If I'd known there wasn't—by the bye, this counts in the game, doesn't it?"
"There isn't anything to count, yet," said Fanny. "Look at those fiery fish—aren't they pretty? See how they squirm about, and fizzle, and behave like mad things! Oh, I never saw anything so pretty as that!"
"Yes. If one must have an interruption, they do as well as anything."
"You weren't talking very coherently, I believe," said the young girl, turning her head to watch the fireworks. "And you've made me miss lots of pretty things, I'm sure. Oh—they've gone out already! How dark it seems, all at once! What were you asking? Whether this counted in the game? Of course it counts. Everything does. But I don't exactly see how—"