Sally sat back silently.  Although Jarvis went on talking about various things she did not reply, and her silence lasted until, having gone a mile on his way, Jarvis slowed down a little and turned to look at her.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.  “You’re certainly not angry with me for running away with you?”

She nodded, looking straight ahead.  This was not like Sally, who, though she possessed plenty of spirit, was seldom known to sulk.

“Well, I’m sorry if you are—­but not sorry I ran away with you.  You can talk to me or not, but you can’t get away.  I’m in too much of a hurry to have time to take you back, so I can keep you to myself for one straight half-hour.  And that’s—­whether you know it or not—­more than I’ve had for a month—­six weeks—­two months.”

This declaration unlocked Sally’s lips.  “How absurd,” said she, still gazing straight ahead.

“It may be absurd, but it’s true.  You may not have noticed it, but it’s true just the same.  I don’t know whether it’s intentional on your part or not—­and I don’t know which I would rather have it, that you’ve meant to keep away, or that you haven’t noticed that you have.  I think,” he added, judicially, “that not knowing that you have would be much the worse, so I choose to think you’ve meant to do it.  And I want to know why.”

He turned and looked at her again.  The cheek next him was pink, and momentarily growing pinker.  Sally again murmured something which sounded like “perfectly absurd.”  But Jarvis considered that no answer at all.  The car began to climb a long grade.

“Please tell me,” he urged.

“There’s nothing to tell,” said the girl, reluctantly.  “There are ever so many of us, now, and we’re naturally all together—­or some of us are together—­”

“And some of us aren’t.”

“We’re just a lot of boys and girls—­”

“Are we?  I feel rather grown up myself.”

Sally spoke quickly.  “I’m not.  Or, at least, I don’t want to be.  I want to stay a girl—­a little girl, I’d be, if I could—­just as long as I can.  I want to have good times—­all together.  Not—­two and two.”  The cheek next him was a very deep pink indeed, now.

“Do I try to make it ’two and two’?”

“You seem to.”

“And you don’t want me to?”

“No.”

“If I happen to see you alone in the garden, must I go and get your Uncle Tim or my mother?”

“Not if you’ll talk sense.”

“I don’t talk sense?”

Sally did not answer this question, so he repeated it, in the form of an accepted statement:  “So I don’t talk sense.”

This certainly called loudly for an explanation, and Sally made it—­in a way.  “I think you know what I mean.”

“I know what I mean, but I didn’t know it deserved that name.”

“It’s only—­” Sally hesitated, then she went through with it, speaking hurriedly:  “I don’t want you to bother about me—­doing things for me—­except as you do them for us all.  You—­you—­are getting—­”