"Sure?" he echoed. "Sure? Oh, heavens!" Then he looked down at her for quite a few rather breathless moments.
After that they talked. "After two months," repeated Cecilia stubbornly. It made no impression. At last she equivocated a bit and gained her point. "I hardly know you," she said, looking away from him; "I—I prefer——"
"I don't know anything about girls," said K. Stuyvesant, "but I know I've been a dub. I'll try to be agreeable, I'll try to keep this to myself. But,—you will give me a chance?"
Cecilia said she would.
"Gosh,—I love——" began K. Stuyvesant; then he shook his head. Cecilia didn't mean to, but she slipped her hand in his, under the kind shelter of a blue and green checked blanket. K. Stuyvesant didn't say anything more. He only looked.
Mrs. Higgenmeyer came paddling by.
"Poppa ain't so well," she called. "He's sick to his stummick!"
"I'm—I'm sorry," answered Cecilia. She tried to pull her hand from K. Stuyvesant's. He refused to let it go. After Mrs. Higgenmeyer had passed, he spoke. "You're mine!" he said in the manner of all lovers. "You are!" His voice was gruff. Cecilia was to learn that that meant that she mattered much.
At his words Cecilia's heart turned over, but she remembered her eccentric, dear, and much-loved father, and a certain brick.
"You promised," she reminded him. "I said after two months, when I knew you. You promised."