“Oh, what is she like?”
“Like a grain of salt,” he said, rather absently.
At this several girls looked at him anxiously, and although they pretended to be as keen as ever for the party, even more than before, still, misgivings assailed them and secretly their enthusiasm fell. John was an unenclosed infatuation on which everyone had rights of commonage. Numbers preserved him. And here he was keeping tryst with a girl they knew nothing about. It was not his fault. But it was too romantic.
Another thing youth knows is that there are sudden, leaping, dare-me-not moments, wild moments of yes, in which the most improbable events come naturally to pass. It did not rain Thursday. John waited in the boxwood. She came slowly, in the magnetized direction, went back, returned, loitered about for some time, then sat on the grass again.
“Aren’t you ashamed to be standing there?” she asked.
“I feel a perfect fool,” he said.
“Oh, do you?” she retorted, and with not another word she rose and walked away.
Whistling softly John departed. It became interesting. Thursday he was there again, and so was she.
“Then why do you do it?” she asked, resuming the conversation at the point where she broke it, as if a week had not elapsed.
“I’ve told you why,” he said. “Can you see me?”