"I have many things to tell you, little Pat," he replied with his foreign precision of speech; "but that is not one of them."
"It's the one I want to hear," said willful Pat.
"First, do you tell me: why did you cry that night?"
"Conscience. No," she contradicted herself thoughtfully; "that's a bluff. I don't know. Sort of nervousness, I expect."
"That is what I feared for you; that you would brood over it and make yourself unhappy——"
"It wasn't that at all," interrupted Pat simply and promptly. "But I did want to see you again and know that you didn't think—that I wasn't too awfully—that I didn't seem just a fresh kid to you."
"No. You didn't."
"Was that being 'petite gamine'?" She threw a sidelong glance at him.
"Was it? You should know."
"After all, it was only a white kiss."