“Well, then, I’ll get to see you when you go back,” I laughed.
“Oh, will you?” she returned coquettishly. “How do you know?”
“Well, won’t I?”
The thought flashed across my mind that once I had been in this selfsame park with Alice several years before; we had sat under a tree not so very far from here, near a pagoda silvered by the moon, and had listened to music played in the distance. I remembered how I had whispered sweet nothings and kissed her to my heart’s content.
“Well, you may if you’re good,” she replied.
I began jesting with her now. I deliberately descended from the ordinary reaches of my intelligence, anxious to match her own interests with some which would seem allied. I wanted her to like me, although I felt all the while that we were by no means suited temperamentally. She was too commonplace and unimaginative, although so attractive physically.
We sat in silence for a time, and I slipped my hand down and laid hold of her fingers. She did not stir, pretending not to notice, but I felt that she was thrilling also.
“You asked about Miss W——,” I said. “What made you do that?”
“Oh, I thought you liked her. Why shouldn’t I?”
“It never occurred to you that I might like some one else?”