Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/396

384 all the jollyin'. That 's a game fer two." She leaned back and laughed rather harshly. "I guess you have n't been readin' any of them lately, anyways."

"No—o," he said.

She bent down over the book again so that he could not see her face. "P'raps if yuh 'd ever been in love, yuh would." He was not so stupid that he could not see she was laughing at him. He did not answer.

"Have n't yuh never been? Because," she went on, without looking up, "I want to know if they do it right in the books."

He rose slowly. "She wants it back Saturday," he said. "I had better come fer it on—"

She dropped the book. "Yuh 're not goin'?" she cried.

He started towards the door. She sprang up and got in front of him. "Now, you go away back there an' sit down," she ordered. "I ain't said anythin' to fly off the handle at like that. Go on, now. I won't let yuh go. Go on back an' sit down."

He did so.

"Great sakes," she said; "you 're as touchy as anythin'." He had been looking at her feet. He raised his eyes to hers now, humbly and apologetically, but with another expression too—as dumb as the look of a dog—that struck her pale. It was a glance that did not last a second. It was followed by a long silence, during which she sat, breathing quickly, the blood burning in her