“You knew more than that,” he challenged joyfully.
But, in woman’s way, she ignored his frontal attack. He was going at too impetuous a speed for her reluctance. “How long have you known that I wasn’t a boy—not from the first, surely?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t, but I didn’t. I was sure locoed,” he confessed. “It was when you came out dressed as a gypsy that I knew. That explained to me a heap of things I never had understood before about you.”
“It explained, I suppose, why I never had licked the stuffing out of any other kid, and why you did not get very far in making a man out of me as you promised,” she mocked.
“Yes, and it explained how you happened to say you were eighteen. By mistake you let the truth slip out. Course I wouldn’t believe it.”
“I remember you didn’t. I think you conveyed the impression to me diplomatically that you had doubts.”
“I said it was a lie,” he laughed. “I sure do owe you a heap of apologies for being so plumb dogmatic when you knew best. You’ll have to sit down on me hard once in a while, or there won’t be any living with me.”
Blushingly she did some more ignoring. “That was the first time you threatened to give me a whipping,” she recalled aloud.
“My goodness! Did I ever talk so foolish?”
“You did, and meant it.”