Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/166

156 "And you're wrong there,' ' contended Gerry, quite unmoved. "It's the only, the essential time."

"What makes you feel that way about it?" asked Teddie, disturbed by the darkening light in his eye.

"Because heaven only knows how long we can be alone here," was his not altogether satisfactory reply.

"I fail to see any particular advantage arising out of our our temporary isolation," retorted Teddie, with quite unexpected Johnsonian dignity.

"Teddie!" was Gerry's sharp cry as he towered over her. "Don't you understand?"

"Understand what?" asked the girl with the exasperatingly level gaze as she surveyed the none too steady hands which he was holding out toward her.

"That I can't help kissing you!" he abandonedly exclaimed as he just as abandonedly proceeded to do so.

Teddie drew slowly away from him. He had seen children draw back, that way,