Page:Across the Stream.djvu/166

156 a moment before she had been penitent, now she stiffened herself and determined that he should meet her more gracefully than that.

"I'm sorry; I'm interrupting you," she said. "I'll tell you some other time."

Archie suddenly threw the paper into the air.

"Oh, aren't we behaving like idiots?" he said. "At heart I am, and so are you really. But I'll confess: I'm just longing to know what Helena writes about. But aren't you an idiot, too? I shall like it enormously if you say you are."

"I am an idiot, too," said the girl. "And Cousin Marion wants Helena and me to live with her till father comes home. She told me to ask you if you approved."

He leaned forward to her.

"Ah, do, Jessie," he said. "I hope you will. I can't see why you shouldn't. Can you?"

She looked straight into the eager blue eyes that were so close to hers. For her there was a wealth of frankness and friendliness, but the light in them was not for her, and she knew it.

"Helena wants to," she said.

"Does that mean that you don't?" he asked. "I'm sorry if that is so."

She got up.

"No, it doesn't mean that a bit," she said "It's delightful of you and Cousin Marion to want us. Of course we'll come."

Archie rose too.

"That's perfectly ripping of you," he said. "We shall be a jolly party, we four."

Quite suddenly a pause fell, very awkwardly, very constrainedly.

"You see, my father doesn't appear much," he said at length. "That's what I meant. He is very often in the country, and—well, we don't see him much."