class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[47]"/>

"Because I knew you'd never make up your mind to tell me—"

"To tell you what?"

"Anything—for fear you should have to say it in the same way someone else had said it before!"

"Said what?"

"Anything! Sit still! Now I'm going to tell you."

She came slowly round the table and knelt on one knee beside him, her elbows on the arm of his chair.

"You've never had the courage to make up your mind to anything," she began.

"Is that what you were going to tell me?" he asked, and looked in her eyes till she dropped their lids.

"No—yes—no! I haven't anything to tell you really. Good night."

"Aren't you going to tell me?"

"There isn't anything to tell," she said.

"Then I'll tell you," said he.

She started up, and the little brass knocker's urgent summons resounded through the bungalow.

"Here she is!" she cried.

He also sprang to his feet.

"And we haven't told each other anything!" he said.

"Haven't we? Ah, no—don't! Let me go! There—she's knocking again. You must let me go!"

He let her slip through his arms.

At the door she paused to flash a soft, queer smile at him.

"It was I who told you, after all!" she said. "Aren't you glad? Because that wasn't a bit literary."

"You didn't. I told you," he retorted.

"Not you!" she said scornfully. "That would have been too obvious."