“Hush! . . . Don't, Al, don't, please. Don't talk in that way. I don't want you to.”
“But why not?”
“Oh, because I don't. It's—it is foolish. You're only a boy, you know.”
“A boy! I'm more than a year older than you are.”
“Are you? Why yes, I suppose you are, really. But that doesn't make any difference. I guess girls are older than boys when they are our age, lots older.”
“Oh, bother all that! We aren't kids, either of us. I want you to listen. You don't understand what I'm trying to say.”
“Yes, I do. But I'm sure you don't. You are glad because you have found you have no reason to be jealous of Ed Raymond and that makes you say—foolish things. But I'm not going to have our friendship spoiled in that way. I want us to be real friends, always. So you mustn't be silly.”
“I'm not silly. Helen, if you won't listen to anything else, will you listen to this? Will you promise me that while you are away you won't have other fellows calling on you or—or anything like that? And I'll promise you that I'll have nothing to say to another girl—in any way that counts, I mean. Shall we promise each other that, Helen? Come!”
She paused for some moment before answering, but her reply, when it came, was firm.
“No,” she said, “I don't think we should promise anything, except to remain friends. You might promise and then be sorry, later.”