"But Blair!" Nannie said, getting her breath; "shall you tell Mamma to-night?"
Blair's face dropped. "I guess I won't tell anybody yet," he faltered; "oh, that awful dinner!"
As the mortification of an hour ago surged back upon him, he added to the fear of telling his mother a resentment that would retaliate by secrecy. "I won't tell her at all," he decided; "and don't you, either."
"I!" said Nannie. "Well, I should think not. Gracious!"
But though Blair did not tell his mother, he could not keep the great news to himself; he saw David the next afternoon, and overflowed.
David took it with a gasp of silence, as if he had been suddenly hit below the belt; then in a low voice he said, "You—kissed her. Did she kiss you?"
Blair nodded. He held his head high, balancing it a little from side to side; his lips were thrust out, his eyes shone. He was standing with his feet well apart, his hands deep in his pockets; he laughed, reddening to his forehead, but he was not embarrassed. For once David's old look of silent, friendly admiration did not answer him; instead there was half-bewildered dismay. David wanted to protest that it wasn't—well, it wasn't fair. He did not say it; and in not saying it he ceased to be a boy.
"I suppose it was when you and she went off after dinner? You needn't have been so darned quiet about it! What's the good of being so—mum about everything? Why didn't you come back and tell? You're not ashamed of it, are you?"
"A man doesn't tell a thing like that," Blair said scornfully.
"Well!" David snorted, "I suppose some time you'll be married?"