Bob muttered disagreeably.
“I suppose you were one of those curly-headed little boys?” went on the temperamental young thing.
“I don’t know whether I was or not,” he snapped. He was getting back into that snappy mood. Then it struck him this might not be quite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for he added sulkily; “Maybe I was.”
“I can just see you,” said the temperamental young thing in a far-off voice. “Nursie must have thought you a darling.”
The slave again muttered ominously. He wished the temperamental little thing would take her fingers away. They trailed now idly over an ear.
“You’re tickling,” said Bob ill-naturedly.
She stopped trailing and patted instead—very gently and carelessly—as if she were patting a big Newfoundland dog which she owned all by herself. That pat expressed a sense of ownership.
“I’m wondering,” she said, “whether it would make things nicer, if I did propose and we became engaged?”
“Oh,” said Bob satirically, “you’re wondering that, are you?”
“Yes.” More tentative pats.