“Very well—you are old. You are a padded veteran of sixty—like Mr. Blake. Do you like that better?”
He was silent, and after a pause they started slowly down the hill.
Two days passed since she had told him that Mrs. Fraser was in love with him. They had been much together, but never alone until now, and she knew that he was furious with himself for letting the minutes slip unmarked by. Suddenly he burst out: “Will you wear that gray frock you wore the first night, to-night? And the low diamond thing in your hair?”
“Why?”
“Because—I want to see you again as I saw you then. I—I have lost my bearings. I can’t remember how you looked, and I—want——”
“I looked like a well-preserved, middle-aged lady. Please don’t begin to think me young, Teddy.”
Under her broad hat brim her eyes gleamed maliciously.
“You are young! I was an idiotic——”
She raised her head.
“Oh, don’t! Don’t fall in love with me; it would bore us both to death; be my nice adopted son.”