Paradise Garden Part 7

"Girls! What a pity!"

She must have glanced around at him quickly, with that bird-like pertness I discovered later. He was declaring war, himself defenseless, and was not even aware of it.

"You're not flattering. A pity! Why?"

"It's too bad if you had to be born why some of you couldn't have been boys. You'd have been a fine sort of a boy, I think."

"Would I really?" she said. "A better sort of a boy than I am a girl?"

He shrugged his shoulders, oblivious of the bait for flattery.

"How should I know what sort of a girl you are? You seem sensible enough and you're not easily frightened. You know, I--I rather like you."

"Really!"

He missed the smile and note of antagonism and went on quickly:

"You're fond of the woods, aren't you? Do you know the birds? They like this place. And b.u.t.terflies--I'd like to show you my collection."

"Oh, you collect?"

"Of course--specimens of all kinds. Birds, eggs, nests, lepidoptera--I've got a museum down at the Manor. Next year you'll have to come and see it."

"Next year!"

"Yes. You see--" Jerry's pause must have been that of embarra.s.sment. I think he realized that he had been going it rather rapidly. I didn't hear this part of the dialogue until our third conversation. "Well, you see, I'm not supposed to see any--any females until I'm twenty-one. Not that I've ever wanted to, you know, but it seems rather foolish that I can't ask you down, if you'd like to come."

Can you visualize a very modern young woman during this ingenuous revelation? Jerry said that close, cool inspection of her slate-blue eyes (he had, you see, also identified their color) rather disconcerted him.

"I'm sure I should be delighted to come," she said with a gravity which to anyone but Jerry would have made her an object of suspicion.

Jerry shook his head.

"But I--I'm afraid it wouldn't do. I've never given my word, but it's an understanding--"

"With whom?"

"With Roger. He's my tutor, you know."

"Oh, I see. And Roger objects to--er--females?"

"Oh, yes, and so do I. They're so useless--most of them. You don't mind my saying so, do you?"

"Oh, not at all," she replied, though I'm sure her lips must have been twitching.

"Of course, you're different. You're really very like a boy. And I don't doubt you're very capable."

"How--capable?"

"You look as if you could do things--I mean useful things."

At this she sank on a rock and buried her face in her hands, quivering from head to foot. Jerry thought that she was crying.

"What's the--?"

She threw out her arms, leaned back against a tree, her long suppressed merriment bubbling forth unrestrained.

"Oh, you'll be the death of me," she laughed, the tears running down her cheeks. "I can't stand being bottled up another minute. I can't."

Jerry was offended.

"I don't see what there is to laugh at," he said with some dignity.

"You don't--that's just it, you don't, and that's what's so funny."

And she laughed again.

"What's funny?" he asked.

"You--!"

"I'm not half as funny as _you_ are, but I don't laugh at you."

"Y--you w-would if you didn't p-pity me so much," she gasped between giggles.

"I don't pity you at all. And I think you're extremely foolish to laugh so much at nothing."

"Even when I'm laughing at y-you?"

She had taken out her handkerchief and now composed herself with difficulty while Jerry's ruffled dignity in silence preened at its feathers. She watched him furtively, I'm sure, between dabs with her handkerchief and at last stopped laughing, got up and offered him her hand.

"I've made you angry," she said. "I'm sorry."

He found that he had taken her hand and was looking at it. The words he used in describing it were these: "It was small, soft and warm, Roger, and seemed alive with vitality, but it was timid, too, like a young thrush just fallen from its nest." So far as I could discover, he didn't seem to know what to do with her hand, and before he decided anything she had withdrawn it abruptly and was turning away.

"I'm going now," she said calmly. "But I've enjoyed being here, awfully. It was very nice of you not to--to throw me over the wall."

"I wouldn't have, really," he protested.

"But you might have had me arrested, which would have been worse." She opened her tin box. "It's your b.u.t.terfly, of course. You can have it, if you like."

"Oh, I wouldn't take it for anything. Besides, that's no good."

"No good?"

"No, common. I've got loads of 'em."

Her nose wrinkled and then she smiled.