“If you should ask me,” she said, half-laughing, half-crying, “what else could I do? I’m alone and deserted. And there’s only you in the world.”
“Miss P-P-Polly,” he began, “I—I can’t believe—”
“It’s true!” she cried, and held out two yearning hands to him. “And if you stammer and stutter and—and—and act like the Unspeakable Perk now, I’ll—I’ll howl!”
If she had any such project, the chance was lost on the instant of the warning, as he caught her to him and held her close.
“Oh!” she cried, trying to push him away. “Do you know, sir, that this is a public square?”
“Well, I didn’t choose it,” he reminded her, laughing in pure joy, with a boyish note new to her ear. “Anyway, there are only us two under the sun.” And he drew her close again, whispering in her ear.
“Oh—oh, is that the language of medical science?” she reproved.
At this point, generic curiosity overcame the feathered eavesdropper in the tree above.
“Qu’est-ce qu’il dit?”—“What’s he say?”
The girl turned a flushed and adorable face upward.