Maisie looked with large eyes for a moment. And this was the boy who only ten days before had decorated Amomma's horns with cut-paper ham-frills and turned him out, a bearded derision, among the public ways! Then she dropped her eyes: this was not the boy.
'Don't be stupid,' she said reprovingly, and with swift instinct attacked the side-issue. 'How selfish you are! Just think what I should have felt if that horrid thing had killed you! I'm quite miserable enough already.'
'Why? Because you're going away from Mrs. Jennett?'
'No.'
'From me, then?'
No answer for a long time. **** dared not look at her. He felt, though he did not know, all that the past four years had been to him, and this the more acutely since he had no knowledge to put his feelings in words.
'I don't know,' she said. 'I suppose it is.'
'Maisie, you must know. I'm not supposing.'
'Let's go home,' said Maisie, weakly.
But **** was not minded to retreat.
'I can't say things,' he pleaded, 'and I'm awfully sorry for teasing you about Amomma the other day. It's all different now, Maisie, can't you see? And you might have told me that you were going, instead of leaving me to find out.'
'You didn't. I did tell. Oh, ****, what's the use of worrying?'
'There isn't any; but we've been together years and years, and I didn't know how much I cared.'
'I don't believe you ever did care.'
'No, I didn't; but I do,--I care awfully now, Maisie,' he gulped,--'Maisie, darling, say you care too, please.'
'I do, indeed I do; but it won't be any use.'
'Why?'
'Because I am going away.'
'Yes, but if you promise before you go. Only say--will you?' A second 'darling' came to his lips more easily than the first. There were few endearments in ****'s home or school life; he had to find them by instinct. **** caught the little hand blackened with the escaped gas of the revolver.
'I promise,' she said solemnly; 'but if I care there is no need for promising.'
'And do you care?' For the first time in the past few minutes their eyes met and spoke for them who had no skill in speech. . . .
'Oh, ****, don't! Please don't! It was all right when we said good-morning; but now it's all different!' Amomma looked on from afar.
He had seen his property quarrel frequently, but he had never seen kisses exchanged before. The yellow sea-poppy was wiser, and nodded its head approvingly. Considered as a kiss, that was a failure, but since it was the first, other than those demanded by duty, in all the world that either had ever given or taken, it opened to them new worlds, and every one of them glorious, so that they were lifted above the consideration of any worlds at all, especially those in which tea is necessary, and sat still, holding each other's hands and saying not a word.
'You can't forget now,' said ****, at last. There was that on his cheek that stung more than gunpowder.
'I shouldn't have forgotten anyhow,' said Maisie, and they looked at each other and saw that each was changed from the companion of an hour ago to a wonder and a mystery they could not understand. The sun began to set, and a night-wind thrashed along the bents of the foreshore.
'We shall be awfully late for tea,' said Maisie. 'Let's go home.'
'Let's use the rest of the cartridges first,' said ****; and he helped Maisie down the slope of the fort to the sea,--a descent that she was quite capable of covering at full speed. Equally gravely Maisie took the grimy hand. **** bent forward clumsily; Maisie drew the hand away, and **** blushed.
'It's very pretty,' he said.
