Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/382

374 "Do you expect me to tell you I am pleased with you when I am not?" he asks gravely. "Would you like me to be a hypocrite? I cannot say one thing and mean another, and the same with you; when you are vexed I should like you to speak out and have done with it."

"I am very much vexed with you now," I say with alacrity; "I wish to get off your knee this very minute, and you will not let me."

"You shall go when you have picked up those books."

"Then we shall stay here until we are fossils," I say, swinging my foot. "Simpkins will be here presently to say dinner is ready; shall we eat it as we are?"

"The dinner can wait."

"Only I can't wait for my dinner."

There is a little pause, during which I look into the red-hot heart of the fire and take counsel with myself. Clearly he is not to be managed by dignity, and I don't mean to give in. Nevertheless, I have no mind to sit here mumchance till we do turn into fossils. I will try coaxing, and see if that will bring him to a proper frame of mind. I steal my arms round his neck and hold up my mouth to be kissed, but he does not bring his face a jot nearer to mine; and for the first time in my life my offered caress is refused. If he had slapped me he could not have astonished me more.

'Nell," he says, "Nell," and he looks into my eyes with a vexed and strong pain in his own, "could you not give up your wilfulness for once to please me?"

For a little space I look at him; then I slip out of his arms and sit down on the hearthrug. There the books lie, nasty little toads! How I hate the man that wrote, the printer that printed, and the person that brought them here! I turn them over with the point of my shoe, and take a covert look at Paul; his head is