“Because I am alone,” Gertie replied, with a very wise shake of the head. “Because men like you shouldn’t kiss girls like me whom they don’t like.”
“But I do like you immensely,” Godfrey said, “and think you the prettiest girl I ever saw.”
“Hush!” Gertie rejoined, with all the dignity of a woman of twenty. “You shall not talk to me like that, and you wouldn’t either if I was somebody else.”
“Who, for instance?” Godfrey asked, and looking him steadily in the face, with her clear, honest eyes, Gertie said:
“Mr. Godfrey, if I were one of your sisters would you have done it?”
“Certainly, I have a right to kiss my sister,” Godfrey said, and Gertie continued:
“I don’t mean that. I mean if you were somebody else and I was one of your sisters.”
“Still wrong,” Godfrey said, “for even if I were somebody else and you my sister I would kiss you many times.”
He would not understand, and Gertie glanced appealingly at Robert Macpherson, who had been listening languidly, while with an artist’s interest he attentively studied the little face which so puzzled and attracted him. As he met her glance he came a step nearer to her, and said:
“Let me tell you how to put it. Suppose you are my sister?”