"Bother the Rules!"
"Well, you don't want to go just this minute; it's jolly here——"
This time she did not withdraw her hand.
But he was very slow, she thought, in kissing her. He had never kissed her yet. What was the good of being caught at—nothing?
Well, statues (she reflected), especially young ones, are slow——
Even as she was thinking it he did that very thing. Perhaps it was to summon up resolution to do so that he had lain awake the previous night. He kissed her cheek.
The result was curious. It was the law of her physique that most moments of perturbation only turned her paler; but at this particular form of perturbation she turned suddenly pink.
In a few moments she was as before. The first sign that she was Louie again was that she forbade him to repeat the offence. He sulked again.
"All right," he said resentfully; "then we may as well go and see the yacht."
"I don't want to see the yacht."