Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/51

 "Your cousin told me." They both looked at Conroy, and were unable to get their eyes back to each other again. Conroy saw the situation, and busied himself with the dog, snapping his fingers at it, and catching at its ears. They struggled with an abashed silence until Conroy—thinking loyally that they would get along better without him—said: "Well, I promised to be back home right away.... I guess I better be going." And in spite of their confused efforts to keep him, he did succeed, with the aid of Dexter, in getting himself off the scene.

She looked around her. "What a beautiful place!"

He replied lamely: "Yes, isn't it?"

She saw his books. "Were you studying?"

He tried to think of something more to say than the bald affirmative, and ended by faltering "N—no." She stooped down to the "Odyssey." "Isn't it funny? What is it?"

"Greek."

"Really?" She sat down on the grass. "Is it—is it as interesting as the book you"

He caught the picture that was in her mind—the picture of the two of them with their heads together over the fairy tales, on his aunt's porch steps—and he laughed. "No—not quite!"

"What is it like? What is it all about?"

He came down slowly, on one knee beside her. "It's—I can't read it without a trans—but it's a good deal of a fairy tale too."

"And there aren't any pictures." She turned over the pages, careful not to look at him for fear she should make him shy again. "It's like the first time