Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/186

178 “How do you know you did not count?” she said, nervously, unable to resist the temptation to play this forbidden game.

He laughed, and for a moment could not find any reply.

“I do!” he said. “You knew you could have me any day, so you didn’t care.”

“Then we’re behaving in quite the traditional fashion,” she answered with irony.

“But you know,” he said, “you began it. You played with me, and showed me heaps of things—and those mornings—when I was binding corn, and when I was gathering the apples, and when I was finishing the straw-stack—you came then—I can never forget those mornings—things will never be the same—You have awakened my life—I imagine things that I couldn’t have done.”

“Ah!—I am very sorry, I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be!—don’t say so. But what of me?”

“What?” she asked rather startled. He smiled again; he felt the situation, and was a trifle dramatic, though deadly in earnest.

“Well,” said he, “you start me off—then leave me at a loose end. What am I going to do?”

“You are a man,” she replied.

He laughed. “What does that mean?” he said contemptuously.

“You can go on—which way you like,” she answered.

“Oh, well,” he said, “we’ll see.”

“Don’t you think so?” she asked, rather anxious.

“I don’t know—we’ll see,” he replied.

They went out with some things. In the hall, she