There was a thing she had known for what seemed to her a long time—God knows in what mysterious fashion she had learned it, but learned it well she had. That no human being but herself was aware of her knowledge was inevitable. To whom could she have told it? But Donal—Donal wanted to know all about her. The little click made itself felt in her throat again.
“She—she doesn’t like me!” Her dropped voice was the whisper of one humbled to the dust by confession, “She—doesn’t like me!” And the click became another thing which made her put up her arm over her eyes—her round, troubled child eyes, which, as she had looked into Donal’s, had widened with sudden, bewildered tears.
Donal flung his arms round her and squeezed his buttons into her tender chest. He hugged her close; he kissed her; there was a choking in his throat. He was hot all over.
“She does like you. She must like you. I’ll make her!” he cried passionately. “She’s not your mother. If she was, she’d love you! She’d love you!”
“Do Mothers l-love you?” the small voice asked with a half sob. “What’s—what’s love you?” It was not vulgar curiosity. She only wanted to find out.
He loosed his embrace, sitting back on his heels to stare.
“Don’t you know?”
She shook her head with soft meekness.
“N-no,” she answered.
Big boys like himself did not usually play with such little girls. But something had drawn him to her at their first moment of encounter. She wasn’t like any other little girls. He felt it all the time and that was part of the thing which drew him. He was not, of course, aware that the male thrill at being regarded as one who is a god had its power over the emotions. She wasn’t making silly fun and pretending. She really didn’t know—because she was different.