“You never were more wrong in your life. What a little temper you’ve got! Listen to me a minute, dear.” And Georgie, though he knew it not, committed black perjury. “It—it isn’t the kind of thing one says to any one, because they’d laugh; but on my word and honour, darling, I’ve never been kissed by a living soul outside my own people in all my life. Don’t laugh, dear. I wouldn’t tell any one but you, but it’s the solemn truth.”
“I knew! You are you. Oh, I knew you’d come some day; but I didn’t know you were you in the least till you spoke.”
“Then give me another.”
“And you never cared or looked anywhere? Why, all the round world must have loved you from the very minute they saw you, Boy.”
“They kept it to themselves if they did. No; I never cared.”
“And we shall be late for dinner—horribly late. Oh, how can I look at you in the light before your mother—and mine!”
“We’ll play you’re Miss Lacy till the proper time comes. What’s the shortest limit for people to get engaged? S’pose we have got to go through all the fuss of an engagement, haven’t we?”
“Oh, I don’t want to talk about that. It’s so commonplace. I’ve thought of something that you don’t know. I’m sure of it. What’s my name?”
“Miri—no, it isn’t, by Jove! Wait half a second, and it’ll come back to me. You aren’t—you can’t? Why, those old tales—before I went to school! I’ve never thought of ’em from that day to this. Are you the original, only Annieanlouise?”
“It was what you always called me ever since the beginning. Oh! We’ve turned into the avenue, and we must be an hour late.”