“’F you think I’d play a game like that——” he began coldly.
“Pleath do, William,” said Violet Elizabeth in a quivering voice. The blue eyes, fixed pleadingly on William, swam suddenly with tears. Violet Elizabeth exerted her sway over her immediate circle of friends and relations solely by this means. Even at that tender age she possessed the art, so indispensable to her sex, of making her blue eyes swim with tears at will. She had, on more than one occasion, found that it was the only suasion to which the stern and lordly William would yield.
He looked at her in dismay.
“All right,” he said hastily. “All right. Come on!”
After all there was nothing else to do and one might as well do this as nothing.
Together they went into the field where was the old barn.
“Thith muth be the houth,” said Violet Elizabeth, her tears gone, her pink and white face wreathed in smiles. “An’ now you go to the offith, darlin’ William, an’ I’ll thee to thingth at home. Good-bye an’ work hard an’ make a lot of money ’cauth I want a loth of new cloth. I’ve thimply nothing fit to wear. The offith ith the corner of the field. You thtay there an’ count a hundred and then come back to your dinner an’ bring me a box of chocolath an’ a large bunch of flowerth.”
“’F you think——” began William, hoarse with indignant surprise.
“I don’ mean real onth, William,” said Violet Elizabeth meekly. “I mean pretend onth. Thticks or grath or anything’ll do.”
“Or won’t!” said William sternly. “’F you think I’m goin’ even to pretend to give presents to an ole girl——!”