Mavis laughed wonderingly. "I should be foolish to do that! Poor Bellaria doesn't mean to be cross, and, if she cannot keep her temper, I must. I wouldn't strike her or anyone, even if I were in a rage. Do you strike people when you are angry?"
Gerald coughed. He had a vivid recollection of schoolfights, and of horsewhipping a scandal-monger, much later in life. "It is necessary sometimes, Mavis," he remarked: "the world is not inhabited entirely by agreeable people."
"Oh, I know that!" she said quickly, "the old gardener, Matthew, who came to help me from Leegarth, is very disagreeable, and he seems to be a little afraid of me. I don't know why, and I am very sorry. I want everyone to love me."
"Doesn't Major Rebb?"
"Yes! in a way. But he is cold. He never kisses me. If you like a person don't you kiss her?"
"If she's a very nice person I do," said Haskins, bubbling over with laughter, "now you----" His eyes completed the sentence.
"You love me?"
"Yes, Mavis!" he answered unhesitatingly. Gerald scorned a lie.
"Then of course----" She bent forward, and, in spite of Gerald's virtuous resolutions, their lips would have met, but that a deep contralto voice boomed from the quadrangle calling on Mavis angrily.
"Oh!" the girl flung back her head, "there is Bellaria calling me to supper. I must go or she may find you. But come again, and I'll kiss you--you---- Oh! what is your name?"