“I want to ask you something,” he said, after a moment’s brisk walking. “I wish—if you don’t mind—I wish you would walk around the square with me—just once—”
“Certainly not,” she said; “and now you will say good-bye—because you are going away, you say.” She had stopped at the Fourth Avenue edge of the square. “So good-bye, and thank you for the beautiful dog, and for the violets.”
“But you won’t keep the dog, and you won’t keep the violets,” he said; “and, besides, if you are going north—”
“Good-bye,” she repeated, smiling.
“—besides,” he went on, “I would like to know where you are going.”
“That,” she said, “is what I do not wish to tell you—or anybody.”
There was a brief silence; the charm of her bent head distracted him.
“If you won’t go,” she said, with caprice, “I will walk once around the square with you, but it is the silliest thing I have ever done in my entire life.”
“Why won’t you keep the bull-terrier?” he asked, humbly.
“Because I’m going north—for one reason.”