“Everybody’s so horrid. Wasn’t he a beast to spoil all our fun? Luke, do let’s get away from everybody for a bit, till they’ve calmed down. I’ve bagged some chocs from the table.” She displayed them, moist and brown, clenched in her hot hands. She looked very pretty, in her bright pink dress and coral beads. Luke surveyed her a moment. Then he said:
“I don’t want any chocs. And I’m not ever going to see you again, Jinny, old girl. At least, not if I can help it”; he remembered the proximity of her dwelling.
Jinny dropped her spoils; and, crimson with anger and surprise, gasped out:
“Well I never! You potty too!”
“No,” retorted Luke, kicking with his foot against the top step, “I’m not potty, and nor’s he. You girls don’t understand, that’s all. There are things we can do better without you. Things!” he repeated darkly, wondering the while what they were. “Girls are soft——”
“We’re not soft. Soft yourself!”
“I don’t mean that sort of soft. And the more we care for you, the finer it is of us to break with you.” He had grasped this much from Sebastian’s outburst. “So you see, Jinny——”
But Jinny was neither as submissive as Letty, nor as responsive as Peter, under similar treatment.
“Break with me, indeed!” tossing her curls indignantly, while the big pink satin bow at the nape of her neck, perked out in aggressive sympathy; “well, you have got a cheek on you, Luke Johnson. Got to be on with a girl before you’re off with her, I’ve always heard. And you were never on with me, that I’m jolly well sure. No, nor likely to be,—a great gawky lumpy-faced boy!”