Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/386

 We sat down, for there seemed much to say.

"I believed more than you did, with all your game," she taunted me.

"But you broke the rules. Anybody can believe anything if he can break all the rules."

"I'd a dreadful time showing you that I meant to."

I shall not detail a conversation that could have but little interest to others. Indeed, I remember it but poorly. I only know that it seemed magically to feed upon itself, yet waxed to little substance for the memory.

One thing, however, I retain vividly enough. In a moment when we both were silent, renewing our amazement at the stars, there burst upon the night a volume of song that I instantly identified.

"She sleeps, my lady sleeps!" sang the clear tenor of Arthur Updyke. "My lady sleeps—she sleeps!" sang three other voices in well-blended corroboration; after which the four discoursed upon this interesting theme.

We were down from the stars at once, but I saw nothing to laugh at, and said as much.

"We might take them out some sandwiches and things to drink," persisted my Little Miss.

But the starlight had shown me a gleam in her eyes that was too outrageously Peavey.

"We will not," I chanted firmly to the music's mellowed accompaniment. "I am free to say now that the thing must be stopped, but you shall do it less brutally—to-morrow or next day."