“Well . . . you know!”
Mildred giggled.
While Wilfred laughed with her, the sweetness of her struck through his body like a dagger. She exercised at once the charm of a child and of a woman. If she had been really grown-up, he would have been terrified of her, but she was a child at heart, and Wilfred was all right with children. At the same time, notwithstanding her dawn-freshness, she was a woman more experienced than himself. He did not have to remember to spare her.
Something set the crowd rampaging up the stairs again. Perhaps there were others who took advantage of the dark halls. Wilfred detained Mildred at the bottom.
“Let them go,” he whispered; “they’re so noisy. Let’s you and I go into my room where it’s quiet.”
“Oh, no!” said Mildred. “Not in there with you alone!”
“Oh,” said Wilfred, immediately cast down.
They hung unhappily at the bottom step.
“Please come,” he begged.
“I will if you promise to be good.”