"Nothing."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"I tell you, I don't care what happens. I—don't—care."
"Judith!"
Once more her hands drew him close; shy hands, groping uncertainly in the dark, and shy lips kissed him. It was the coolest and lightest of kisses, but it was worth all the others, if the boy knew how much it promised—more than all her broken speech had promised, more than any spoken words.
Judith herself did not know, but some instinct older than she was made her whisper: "Be good to me. Will you be good to me?"
"Yes, Judith."
The boy answered her small, shaken whisper solemnly, as if he were taking a formal and irrevocable vow, but there was no one to listen to it here, and bear witness to it as irrevocable. The girl did not answer him. Suddenly shy, breathing quickly, and trying to laugh, she slipped out of his arms.
The boy let her go. Some time before the trailing reins had been caught up and twisted twice round the whip socket. He had done this instinctively, he could not have told just when. He bent down and untwisted them now, rather slowly and awkwardly, not looking at Judith. Then he sat down stiffly beside her.
"You're tired," he said, with new gentleness in his voice. He put an arm loosely round her waist in the manner of an affectionate but inexperienced parent, and her head dropped on his shoulder. "Very tired?"