Priscilla had a happy thought. “But you told me a lie. You said you warn’t hungry.”
Matt looked startled.
“Oh, but that—that was different,” he stammered again.
“Can’t see it. Tit for tat.”
Matt pondered in silence.
Priscilla rose. “Set down,” she said, soothingly, and the boy, feeling confusedly guilty, let himself be pressed down into his seat.
Priscilla nestled to him, sharing his chair, and pressing her soft cheek to his.
“Was he mad with his poor little Priscilla?” she cooed. “No, he mustn’t be angry, bless his handsome face.”
Matt was not angry any longer, but he was uncomfortable. He tried to whip up his sense of romance, to feel what he felt in reading love-poetry, to fancy that he was sitting with a pensive princess in a cedar grove under a crescent moon. But he could only feel that Priscilla was a real terrestrial person, and mendacious at that.
Priscilla’s lips sought his in a long kiss. “You are fond o’ me, Matt, aren’t you?” she murmured, coaxingly.