"I must be allowed to call on you!" he said with suppressed intensity. "You don't dislike me very much, do you?"
"I—I don't like cuts over the eye," said I, evading the question.
"I don't have 'em any more," he urged.
And then he explained about the émeute in the line-gang, and the four-hole connectors, and confessed to the violent and sanguinary manner in which he had felt called upon to put down the uprising. I could feel my face grow hot and cold by turns, like Desdemona's while Othello was telling the same kind of things; and when I looked for the scar on his forehead he bowed his head, and I put the curls aside and found it. I would have given worlds to—it was so much like a baby coming up to you and crying about thumping its head and asking you to kiss it well. Once I had my lips all puckered up—but I had the self-control to refrain—I was so afraid.
It was getting dusk now, and Billy seized my hand and kissed it. I was quite indignant until he explained that his motives were perfectly praise-worthy. Then I led him to talk of the rich Miss Blunt to whom he had a letter of introduction, and advised him to present it, and argued with appalling cogency that one ought to marry in such a way as to better one's prospects, and Billy got perfectly furious at such a view of love and marriage—explaining, when I pretended to think he was mad at me, that he knew I was just teasing. And then he began again about calling on me, and seeing my parents, or guardians, or assigns, or any one that he ought to see.
"Because," said he, "you're a perfect baby, with a baby's blue eyes and hair of floss, and tender skin, and trustfulness; and I ought to be horsewhipped for sitting here in the park with you in—in this way, with no one paying any attention but Mr. Lincoln, up there."
Then I did feel deeply, darkly crime-stained; and I could have hugged the dear fellow for his simplicity—me helpless, with Atkins, and the knowledge of Amelia Wyckoff's letter; not to mention Mr. Lincoln—bless him!—or a park policeman who had been peeking at us from behind a bunch of cannas! I could have given him the addresses of several gentlemen who might have certified to the fact that I wasn't the only one whose peace of mind might have been considered in danger.
I grew portentously serious just before I went home, and told Billy that he must see me on my own terms or not at all, and that he mustn't follow me, or try to find out where I lived, but must walk around the curve to the path and let me mingle with the landscape.
"May I not hope," said he, "to see you again soon?"
"I may feed the elephant some peanuts," said I, "on Thursday evening—no, I shall play in a mixed foursome, and then dine on Thursday afternoon at the Onwentsia—"