Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/124

 she said with great enjoyment. Mr. Polly felt they were a sun’s distance from the world of everyday.

“Fly with me!” he dared.

She stared for a moment, and then went off into peals of laughter. “You are funny!” she said. “Why, I haven’t known you five minutes.”

“One doesn’t—in this medevial world. My mind is made up, anyhow.”

He was proud and pleased with his joke, and quick to change his key neatly. “I wish one could,” he said.

“I wonder if people ever did!”

“If there were people like you.”

“We don’t even know each other’s names,” she remarked with a descent to matters of fact.

“Yours is the prettiest name in the world.”

“How do you know?”

“It must be—anyhow.”

“It is rather pretty you know—it’s Christabel.”

“What did I tell you?”

“And yours?”

“Poorer than I deserve. It’s Alfred.”

“I can’t call you Alfred.”

“Well, Polly.”

“It’s a girl’s name!”

For a moment he was out of tune. “I wish it was!” he said, and could have bitten out his tongue at the Larkins sound of it.

“I shan’t forget it,” she remarked consolingly.