"You didn't."
"I did—in the end."
It was odd that they should be both thinking of that last encounter and that they should speak of it so guardedly, as though it were still a delicate matter.
"I didn't know you were never coming again. I waited for you in the afternoon—for weeks and weeks."
"Did you?" He looked at her quickly, taken off his guard, and then away again with a scornful laugh. "Oh, I don't believe it. You knew I wasn't nice—not your sort. You're just making it up."
"I wonder why you say that?" she asked dispassionately. "It's cheap and stupid. You're not really stupid and you weren't cheap, even if you weren't nice. And you know that I don't tell lies."
For a moment he was too startled and too ashamed to answer. Cheap. That was just the word for it. The sort of thing that common young men said to their common young women. And, of course, he did know. Her integrity was a thing you felt. But he could never bring himself to tell her that he had been afraid to believe too easily, or that he did not want to have to remember her afterwards, waiting there day by day, in their deserted playground. It troubled him already, like a vague, indefinite pain.
He did not even apologize.
"I suppose I should have come back sooner or later. But I didn't have the chance. My father died that night—unexpectedly." He brushed aside her low interjection.
"Oh, I was jolly glad. But after that we had to clear out. There was no money at all."