“No, we did not. And you know we didn't.”
“Helen, why do you treat me that way? Don't you know that—that I just worship the ground you tread on? Don't you know you're the only girl in this world I could ever care for? Don't you know that?”
They were walking home from church Sunday morning and had reached the corner below the parsonage. There, screened by the thicket of young silver-leafs, she stopped momentarily and looked into his face. Then she walked on.
“Don't you know how much I care?” he repeated.
She shook her head. “You think you do now, perhaps,” she said, “but you will change your mind.”
“What do you mean by that? How do you know I will?”
“Because I know you. There, there, Albert, we won't quarrel, will we? And we won't be silly. You're an awfully nice boy, but you are just a boy, you know.”
He was losing his temper.
“This is ridiculous!” he declared. “I'm tired of being grandmothered by you. I'm older than you are, and I know what I'm doing. Come, Helen, listen to me.”
But she would not listen, and although she was always kind and frank and friendly, she invariably refused to permit him to become sentimental. It irritated him, and after she had gone the irritation still remained. He wrote her as before, although not quite so often, and the letters were possibly not quite so long. His pride was hurt and the Speranza pride was a tender and important part of the Speranza being. If Helen noted any change in his letters she did not refer to it nor permit it to influence her own, which were, as always, lengthy, cheerful, and full of interest in him and his work and thoughts.