“Oh, my! I wouldn’t dare!”
“Well, try it!”
“Oh, I couldn’t! Imagine!”
“ ’Fraid cat!”
“I am not so.”
“Yes, you are!”
“No, I’m not!”
“I dare you!”
“Well—Elmer, then! So there now!”
They laughed intimately, and in the stress of their merriment he picked up her hand, squeezed it, rubbed it against his arm. He did not release it, but it was only with the friendliest and least emphatic pressure that he held it while he crooned: