“Just as you like.” The lad’s breath was coming a little fast. They had been on the edge of some moment of intimacy that Bucky’s partner both longed for and dreaded. “But you have not told me yet whether I can go with you.”
“You can’t. I’m sorry. I’d like first-rate to take you, if you want to go, but I can’t do it. I hate to disappoint you if you’re set on it, but I’ve got to, kid. Anything else you want I’ll be glad to do.”
He added this last because Frank looked so broken-hearted about it.
“Very well.” Swift as a flash came the demand: “Tell me these heaps of first-rate reasons you were mentioning just now.”
Under the sun-tan he flushed. “I reckon I’ll have to make another exception, Curly. Those reasons ain’t ripe yet for telling.”
“Then if you are—if anything happens—I’ll never know them. And you promised you would tell me—you, who pretend to hate a liar so,” she scoffed.
“Would it do if I wrote those reasons and left them in a sealed envelope? Then in case anything happened you could open it and satisfy that robust curiosity of yours.” He recognized that he had trapped himself, and he was making the best bargain left him.
“You may write them, if you like. But I’m going to open the letter, anyway. The reasons belong to me now. You promised.”
“I’ll make a new deal with you, then,” he smiled. “I’ll take awful good care of myself to-night if you’ll promise not to open the envelope for two weeks unless—well, unless that something happens that we ain’t expecting.”
“Call it a week, and it’s a bargain.”