“You can believe me, Laura! Only trust in me!”
“I—I don’t know, Hal. I know what men are. They’re all so much alike.”
“Not all, dear! You ought to know me well enough to have confidence in me. Think of the long, long time we’ve known each other. Think of the years and years of friendship! Why, Laura, we’ve known each other ever since we were a couple of children playing on the beach, writing each other’s names in the sand—”
“For the next high tide to wash away!”
“But we’re not children now. There’s something in my heart no tide can obliterate!”
“I hope that’s true, Hal. But you’re not through college yet. Wait till you are. You’ve got to graduate with flying colors, and make your dear old grandfather the proudest man in the world, and be the wonderful success I know you’re going to be! And make me the happiest girl! You will, won’t you?”
“I’ll do anything in the world for you, Laura!” he exclaimed. His face, flushed with enkindling desire, showed no sign of shame or dejection. Laura knew nothing of his débâcle at the university. Of course she must soon know; but all that still lay in the future. And to Hal nothing mattered now but just the golden present with its nectar in the blossom and its sunshine on the leaf. He drew her a little closer.
“Tell me,” he whispered. “Do you really care?”
“Don’t ask me—yet!” she denied him, turning her face away. “Come, let’s be going down!”
“Why, we’ve only just come!”