“What? Why, of course not! Men don’t go calling in pumps. Your best shoes will do. Are you crazy? A straw hat in February! You will wear your middy cap. Now don’t argue the matter, Richard, or you can’t go at all.”
Seated opposite her on a hassock, their mothers chatting across the room, his assurance withered away. There was nothing whatever to say, and he said it, adequately perhaps, but with a sense of deepening embarrassment. She took refuge behind her hair, and they stared uncomfortably at each other.
“Seated opposite her on a hassock.”
“And he has never condescended to have anything to do with little girls before, so we are much impressed.”
Oh, why did not the hassock yawn beneath him and swallow him up! To discuss him as if he were a piece of furniture! Laugh away! The crackling of thorns under a pot....
Day before yesterday he had been so easily grand seigneur, so tolerantly charmed: to-day he wished he had not come. Why didn’t she speak? If only they were out of doors; in a room with pictures and cushions a man is at such a disadvantage.
“If you’ll come over to my house, I’ll show you the biggest rat-hole you ever saw—it’s in the stable!” he said desperately. It was a good deal to do for a girl, but she was worth it.
“Oh! Oh!” she breathed, and her eyes widened.
“Maybe you can see the rat—he doesn’t often come out, though,” he added honestly.