Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/184

 everything you've got into that first blow." He replaced the sabers. Then he turned to Edward with a mischievous smile. "Was she home?" he asked.

"Who?"

"Mother told me a long song and dance about you and some fair Alice whom you have been forbidden to see. Mother added that she and her infidel family were just back from the White Mountains. And that she hoped and trusted that you would not go near them."

"Being forbidden to do something isn't promising not to, is it?" said Edward. "They were home all right . . . Their house seems more like home to me than this house does. There isn't a finer man in the world than Mr. Ruggles or a kinder one. Mother hates him because he doesn't believe that the whale swallowed Jonah."

"You know, Eddie," said John, "you're getting old enough to take things pretty seriously. Are you in love?"

To the shy and modest Edward there was something terribly rough and brutal about this sudden direct question. He had always loved Alice. Everybody knew that. As for being in love with her, that was a new idea. He had never thought about it in just that way. Their relationship had been a warm and happy drifting, an inarticulate