"You're a kind boy, Tommy."
He looked away from her because he was afraid to trust himself. "What about that walk?" he asked gruffly.
They went for the walk—a very silent walk it was, for neither of them felt inclined to talk, and later, when they parted outside the house, young Atkins asked anxiously:
"It's all right, isn't it? I mean—everything is just the same as it was before . . . before I told you?"
"Yes—of course." But she knew that it was not, that it never could be, though during the next day or two they both struggled valiantly to get back to the old happy plane of friendship.
135 And one evening Tommy said abruptly as they were driving home together from a theater:
"Marie—I'm not coming any more," and then, as she did not answer, he went on desperately: "I just—can't!"
Marie sat quite still, her hands clasped in her lap, her brown eyes fixed on a little pale moon that was climbing the dark sky outside.
She had thought a great deal of this boy's friendship and now she knew that she was to lose it.
She tried to think of Chris, but somehow it seemed difficult; it was so long since she had seen him, and he was so far away.