“I believe that’s a cracker,” said Lizzie, who was beginning to enjoy the walk.
“It isn’t, indeed. I swear it’s true.”
“Oh! How can you? Well, if it’s true it oughtn’t to have been. You ought to have had some one to practise on, and then you would have learned to do things nicely. Practice makes perfect, you know.”
A light argument followed, which ended in Goddard’s discomfiture, and left him with a vague feeling that he had missed one of the duties of man in letting his talent for lovemaking lie dormant, and also an uneasy wonder at the extent of Lizzie’s familiarity with the subject. But Lizzie was quite happy.
“You wouldn’t like any other girl, would you?”
She rested her head slightly against him. The glare of an electric-lighted shop-front fell on her pretty, upturned face, and the young man forgot everything, save that she had soft puckered lips and young, even teeth.
They were reconciled as far as harmony was ever possible between their natures. The rest of the walk home was undisturbed, and when they arrived at Lizzie’s door they were well pleased with each other. She opened the door with her latch-key and, holding it ajar, received his kiss prettily, and then with a desire to complete the reconciliation in all ways, said—
“I’m glad you decided to remain a workingman, Dan. I can’t bear them silly politics.”
She disappeared quickly. Dan remained for a moment looking vaguely at the knocker, as if to address it in confidential remonstrance; and then turning away, he let himself into the adjoining house, and slowly mounted the stairs to his room, with an all-pervading sense of the strange futility of the female mind.