"He must think we're kids again——"
"Shamey! Winnie wants to be kissed, and Carl won't——"
"I don't, either, so there——"
"I think it's awful."
"Bet I kiss Gertie——"
Carl was furious at all of them as they strained their shoulders forward from their chairs and laughed. He asked himself, "Haven't these galoots got any sense?"
To speak so lightly of kissing Gertie! He stared at the smooth rounding of her left cheek below the cheek-bone till it took a separate identity, and its white softness filled the room.
Ten minutes afterward, playing "post-office," he was facing Gertie in the semi-darkness of the sitting-room, authorized by the game to kiss her; shut in with his divinity.
She took his hand. Her voice was crooning, "Are you going to kiss me terribly hard?"
He tried to be gracefully mocking: "Oh yes! Sure! I'm going to eat you alive."