Part 20 (1/2)
”Don't be coa.r.s.e, darling.” There is a certain disadvantage in having known the woman who is the object of your tenderest emotions all your life, and to be on terms of the most familiar badinage with her. d.i.c.k was feeling this disadvantage acutely at the moment. He took a step toward her, and put a heavy hand on her shoulder. ”Nancy, don't you love me?” he said, ”don't you really?”
”No,” Nancy said deliberately, ”I don't, and you know very well I don't. Unlock that door, and let's be sensible.”
”Don't you know, dear, or care that you're hurting me?”
”No, I don't,” Nancy said. ”You say so, and I hear you, but I don't really believe it. If I did--”
”If you did--what?”
”Then I'd be sorrier.”
”You aren't sorry at all, as it stands.”
”I find it's awfully hard to be sorry for you, d.i.c.k, in any connection. There's really nothing pathetic about you, no matter how tragic you think you are being. You're rich and lucky and healthy. You have everything you want--”
”Not everything.”
”And you live the way you want to, and eat the food you want to--”
”The ruling pa.s.sion.”
”And make the jokes you want to.” Nancy literally stuck up a saucy nose at him. ”There is really nothing that I could contribute to your happiness. I mean nothing important. You are not a poor man whom I could help to work his way up to the top, or a genius that needs fostering, or a--”
”Dyspeptic that needs putting on a special diet,--but for all that I do need a mother's love, Nancy.”
”I don't believe you do,” Nancy said, a trifle absently. ”Unlock the door, d.i.c.k. I don't think Sheila put on that sweater when I told her to, and I'm afraid she'll get cold.”
”Kiss me, Nancy.”
”Will you unlock the door if I do?”
”Yes'um.”
Nancy put up cool fragrant lips to meet a brother's kiss, and for the moment was threatened with a second salute that was very much less fraternal, but the danger pa.s.sed. d.i.c.k unlocked the door and let her pa.s.s him without protest.
”If you had been any other girl,” he mused, as they went down the stairs together companionably, ”you wouldn't have got away with that.”
”With what?” Nancy asked innocently.
”If you don't know,” d.i.c.k said, ”I won't tell you. If you'd been any other girl I should have thrown that key out of the window when you began to sa.s.s me.”
”And then?” Nancy inquired politely.
”And then,” d.i.c.k replied finally and firmly.
”Are there any other girls?” Nancy asked, faintly curious, as they stood on the deep steps of the porch waiting for Sheila and Williams who were emerging from the middle entrance.
d.i.c.k met her glance a little solemnly, and hesitated for a perceptible instant.