"It's not exactly necessary to have six children, you know," she said, "and then you needn't be worried over a place for them, and can afford to think a little about the place you'd like for yourself."
The sun was in her eyes and she missed the look in his as he jumped up from the astonished group and seized her wrist.
"Christine, you simply shan't talk that way!" he said. "I don't know what's the matter with you to-day—why are you so different? Are you trying to tease me? Because I might as well tell you right now that you're succeeding a little too well."
The pink parasol dropped between them. Her eyes met his squarely, though her voice shook a little.
"Let my wrist go, Mr. Armstrong," she said, "you hurt me. I assure you I'm not different at all. If you really want to know what the matter with me is, let me ask you if you saw anything out of the way before your friends there interfered?" she pointed to the little group he had left. "We seemed to be getting on very well then."
His face fell, and she went on more quickly and with less controlled tones.
"You are the one that is different! I have always been just the same—just exactly the same! Ask anybody if I've changed—ask aunty! 'Tina has the best temper of any girl I know,' aunty always says. But its just as she warned me. Aunty always knows—she's seen lots and lots of people and plenty of swells, too—it isn't as if you were the only one, Mr. Armstrong!"
He looked curiously at the flushed, lovely face; curiously, as though he had never really studied it before.
"Perhaps—perhaps it is I," he said slowly, "I—maybe you're right. And of course I know—" he smiled oddly at the pretty picture she made—"that I'm not the only one."
Something in his tone irritated her; she unfurled the rosy parasol angrily.