Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/28

"Georgie" Everyone does. But why did you get engaged to her? That's the point."

Georgie rumpled his hair again. "I can't think," said he, perplexedly. "These things happen before you know where you are. There was a dance, you know, and a champagne supper, and places for sitting out on the stairs, and landings. She wore a rose-colored frock and her cheeks were rose-color too. They're generally so pale, aren't they? and you know how it is when you want to kiss a girl awfully, and feel all at once that you simply loathe the idea of her belonging to any one else."

"Yes," said I grimly. I did know.

"Well, that's how it was with me." He finished with an engaging simplicity which inspired me with an ardent desire to punch his head.

"Oh," said I, "that was it, was it? And Violet?"

"Ah," Georgie sighed, "you don't know how I love that girl and yet—for the moment I seemed to have quite for- 12