“Why don’t you chuck it all overboard and make a new start?” he asked her abruptly.
She looked at him, a little startled. He had never before made so direct a reference to her situation.
“I don’t care to talk about that.”
“But you’ll have to talk about it some time. You can’t go on like this for ever, and—you know I love you, that I’d do anything in the world for you.”
“I know you talk a lot of foolishness, Larry,” she retorted sharply. “I may be a goose, but I’m not silly enough to take you seriously all the time. Let’s go back to the house.”
“I don’t see why you can’t take me seriously,” he said sulkily.
“Because you’re only a boy. You think you want the moon, but you don’t; at least the only reason you want it is because it’s in somebody else’s yard.”
“It doesn’t need to stay there always, does it?”
“That isn’t a matter for you and me to discuss,” she flashed at him with spirit. “Whenever I need your advice I’ll ask for it, my friend.”
She led the way to the house, her slender limbs moving rhythmically with light grace. Larry walked beside her sullenly. What was the matter with her to-night? Last week she had almost let him kiss her. If she had held him back, still it had been with the promise in her manner that next time he might be more successful. But now she had pushed him back into the position of a friend rather than a lover.