“I want to talk to you, please,” she said, coaxingly. “You are not too angry with me to let me speak to you, are you?”
“I have not said I was angry with you, Miss Thurston,” replied Ralph.
“Now, Ralph!” Barbara put her hand lightly on his sleeve. “You know you don’t call me Miss Thurston. We decided weeks ago it was silly for us to call each other Miss and Mister when we were such intimate friends. I want you to do me a favor. Will you take me over to Mrs. Cartwright’s to-night? Donald and his guest, ‘the freshman,’ are coming for Grace and Mollie. Ruth, of course, is going over with Hugh, and I could go with them, but I want to talk to you. I can’t say what I have to say to you now, because already the girls are calling me. Please say you will take me.”
Barbara’s eyes were so pretty and pleading that Ralph felt his anger already melting. Yet Ralph’s feeling toward Barbara was not only anger. It was a much more serious thing, a growing sense of distrust. But he answered: “Of course, Bab, I shall be delighted to take you.”
Barbara and Ralph let the rest of their friends start ahead of them. They wanted to have their walk alone.
Miss Sallie had pleaded fatigue, and remained at home. “Besides, children,” she explained, “I am much too old to take any further interest in games, ‘eyeology,’ or any other ‘ology.’”
Ralph and Barbara walked in silence down the street for several minutes. Then Bab spoke. “Tell me, Ralph, what is the matter? If you were angry with a man you would tell him what the trouble was, if he asked you. It is not fair not to be open with me because I am a girl. If you think you are being more polite to me by not telling me why you are angry, then I don’t agree with you. I think you are acting a whole lot worse.”
Ralph continued to go on in moody silence.
“All right, then, Ralph,” said Barbara; “I can’t ask you any more questions, or beg your pardon, when I don’t know what I have done to offend you. Only I am sorry.”
“Oh, it isn’t that you have offended me, Bab,” Ralph burst out. “Do you suppose I would act like such a bear if you had just thrown me down, or some little thing like that, when we have been such jolly good friends before? I didn’t like your sending me off yesterday, when you went to look for Mollie, because—because——”