He answered eagerly. “I wish we had! Those were the loneliest five weeks of my life!” And then he said something implying that though there had been a great deal in the papers early in the war about showing soldiers hospitality, not much of it had come his way.
“That was perhaps a little bit of your own fault.” Lily wondered at her own daring, but he took it in good part.
“I daresay it was,” he said gravely. “I—I don’t make friends easily, Miss Fairfield.” Something outside himself prompted him to add: “I’ve never had what so many chaps seem to have now—a woman pal.” He added, honestly enough, “I never felt I wanted one till now.” And then, more lightly, “I wish you’d think of me as you do of—of M. Popeau.”
And then for the first time with him, there came a touch of coquetry into Lily Fairfield’s manner—that touch of coquetry which nature teaches every normal, happy-natured girl when the ball lies at her feet.
“He asked me to call him ‘Papa Popeau’ to-day,” she said demurely. “Somehow I can’t imagine your asking anyone to call you ‘Papa Stuart!’”
They both laughed, a mirthful, youthful peal of joint laughter. “And are you going to call him ‘Papa Popeau?’” asked Captain Stuart, smiling broadly.
She shook her head. “No, I really can’t do that—though I do like him—most awfully!”
“I won’t ask you to call me anything yet,” he said seriously.
He stopped speaking abruptly, and Lily, almost as if she was being “willed” to do it, turned and looked up into his face. She told herself that it was a fine, honest, strong face—not perhaps that of an always good-tempered man, but a face one would like to be looking up into if one were suddenly caught in a tight corner.
“I want to feel that we’re friends—really friends,” he said slowly. “If anything else disagreeable or painful should happen to you—which God forbid!” he added hastily, for he saw her face quiver and change a little—“then I hope you’ll come to me as readily as you would to—Papa Popeau!”