“I can’t help it, Kitty; you really must not ask me. I’m a very much puzzled boy. I’m—I’m—Kitty, did you ever have to pull yourself up short just when you wanted to say something most interesting? I’m always pulling myself up short, and I’m dreadfully, dreadfully tired of it.”
“It must be something like giving a sudden jerk to one of our ponies,” said Kitty. “I know—it must be a horrid feeling. Does it set your teeth on edge, Phil, and do you quite tremble with impatience?”
“Yes,” said Phil, throwing himself full length on the floor of the old armory, where he and Kitty had ensconced themselves on a pouring wet day early in the month of February. “Yes, Kitty, if feeling very unpleasant all over means setting your teeth on edge, I do know it. I’m a little boy with lots of secrets, and I never can tell them, not to you nor to anybody at Avonsyde—no, not to anybody. I’ll get accustomed to it in time, but I don’t like it, for naturally I’m the kind of boy who can’t keep a secret.’
“What a horrid man you’ll grow up!” said Kitty, eying her cousin with marked disapproval. “You’ll be so reserved and cross-grained and disagreeable. You’ll have been pulled up short so often that you’ll look jerky. Oh, dear me, Phil, I wouldn’t be you for a great deal!”
“I wouldn’t be myself if I could help it,” said Phil, with a sigh which he tried hard to smother. “Oh, I say, Kitty-cat, will you coax Aunt Grizel to take us into Southampton soon? I am quite certain my letter must be waiting for me. You don’t know, Kitty, you can’t possibly guess what a letter from his dearest friend means to a rather lonely kind of boy like me.”
“You had better ask Aunt Grizel yourself,” answered Kitty, with a little pout and a little frown. “She’s so fond of you, Phil, that she’ll do it. She’ll take you to Southampton if you coax her and if you put on that funny kind of sad look in your eyes. It’s the kind of look our spaniel puts on, and I never can say ‘No’ to him when he has it. I don’t know how you do it, Phil, nor why you do it; but you have a very sorry look in your eyes when you like. Is it because you’re always and always missing your dearest friend?”
“It’s partly that,” answered Phil. “Oh, you don’t know what he’s like, Kitty! He’s most splendid. He has got such a grand figure, and he walks in such a manly way, and his eyes are as dark and wonderful-looking as Rachel’s, and—and—oh, Kitty, was I telling you anything? Please forget that I said anything at all; please don’t remember on any account whatever that I have got a dearest friend!”
“I think you are perfectly horrid!” said Kitty, stamping her foot. “Just the minute we begin talking about anything interesting you give one of those jerks, just as if you had a cruel rider on your back. I can’t think what it all means. If you have a dearest friend, there’s no harm in it; and if you had a Betty to take care of you, there’s no harm in that; and if you lived in a cottage in a plantation, that isn’t a sin; and if you did go into the forest to meet the lady, and you didn’t meet her, although you were nearly swallowed up by a bog, why—why—what’s the matter, Phil? How white you are!”
“Nothing,” said Phil, suddenly pressing his face down on the cushion against which he was lying—“nothing—Kit—I—” He uttered one or two groans. “Fetch me a little water, please!”
The child’s face had suddenly become livid. He clinched his hands and pressed them against his temples, and buried that poor little drawn, piteous face further and deeper into the soft cushion. At last the paroxysm of pain passed; he panted, raised himself slowly, and struggled to his feet.