Again he looks down, as if unwilling to meet my appealing eyes.
"I think not, Nancy," he answers, reluctantly. "You see, I cannot possibly tell how long I might be obliged to keep you waiting."
"I do not mind waiting at all," persist I, eagerly. "I am not very impatient; I shall not expect you to be very quick, and" (going on very fast, to hinder him from the second refusal which I see hovering on his lips), "and it is not at all cold; just now you yourself said that you had felt many a chillier May-day, and I am so warmly wrapped up, pet!" (taking hold of one of his fingers, and making it softly travel up and down the fur of my thick coat).
He shakes his head, with a gesture unwilling, yet decided.
"No, Nancy, it could not be! I had rather that you would go home."
"I have no doubt you would!" say I, turning sharply and huffily away; then, with a sudden recollecting and repenting myself, "May I come back, then?" I say, meekly. "Come and fetch you, I mean, after a time—any long time that you like!"
"Will you?" he cries, with animation, the look of unwilling refusal vanishing from his face. "Would you like? would not it be too much trouble?"
"Not at all! not at all!" reply I, affably. "How soon, then?" (taking out my watch); "in half an hour?"
Again his face falls a little.
"I think it must be longer than that, Nancy."