“No,” Emmy said. “It’s wonderful.”
Peering closely, Alf could see her eyes shining.
“D’you think you’re fond enough of me, Emmy?” She demurred.
“That’s a nice thing to say! As if it was for me to tell you!” she whispered archly back.
“What ought I to say? I’m not ... mean to say, I don’t know how to say things, Emmy. You’ll have to put up with my rough ways. Give us a kiss, old sport.”
“How many more! You are a one!” Emmy was not pliant enough. In her voice there was the faintest touch of—something that was not self-consciousness, that was perhaps a sense of failure. Perhaps she was back again suddenly into her maturity, finding it somehow ridiculous to be kissed and to kiss with such abandon. Alf was not baffled, however. As she withdrew he advanced, so that his knuckle rubbed against the brick wall to which Emmy had retreated.
“I say,” he cried sharply. “Here’s the wall.”
“Hurt yourself?” Emmy quickly caught his hand and raised it, examining the knuckle. The skin might have been roughened; but no blood was drawn. Painfully, exultingly, her dream realised, she pressed her cheek against the back of his hand.
ix
“What’s that for?” demanded Alf.