Immediately Hugh John slunk out, ran off in an entirely different direction, circled about the "office houses," reached the stile behind the stable—and there, with her eyes very big, and her underlip quivering strangely, he discovered Cissy Carter.
He stopped short and looked at her. The pressure of having to say farewell, or of making a stated speech of any kind, weighed heavily upon him. The two looked at each other like young wild animals—or as if they were children who had never been introduced, which is the same thing.
"Hugh John Picton, you don't care!" sobbed Cissy at last. "And I don't care either!" she added haughtily, commanding herself after a pathetic little pause.
"I do, I do," answered Hugh John vehemently, "only every fellow has to. Sammy is going too, you know!"
"Oh, I don't care a button for Sammy!" was Cissy's most unsisterly speech.
Hugh John tried to think of something to say. Cissy was now sobbing quietly and persistently, and that did not seem to help him.
"Say, don't now, Ciss! Stop it, or you'll make me cry too!"
"You don't care! You don't love me a bit! You know you don't!"
"I do—I do," protested the hero, in despair, "there—there—now you can't say I don't care."
"But you'll be so different when you come back, and you'll have lost your half of the crooked sixpence."