“I wish the others would come.  I’ve got a topping plan.  Edith goes shopping ’bout six o’clock when it’s almost dark.  We’ll wait at the corner of John Street and jump out at her and shriek like Red Indians.  And then she’ll drop dead with fright.  She’s such a silly beast——­”

Then to his amazement he saw that Francey had grown quite white.  Her mouth quivered.  It was as though she were going to cry.  And he had never seen her cry.

“They—­they aren’t coming, Robert.”

“N-not coming?  W-why not?”

“There’s been a row.  Someone complained.  Their people won’t let them come any more.  Not to play with you.  They say—­they say——­”

He went on fighting, swinging his sword, over his head, faster and faster.  Someone was pressing his heart so that he could hardly breathe.  It was all over.  They knew.  Everything was going.  Finished.

“What do they say?”

“They say you’re not a nice little boy——­”

There were some tall weeds growing out of the tumbled bricks.  He slashed at them through the mist that was blinding him.  He would cut their heads off, one after another—­just to show her.

“I don’t care—­I don’t care——­”

“That’s why I waited this afternoon.  I wanted to tell you.  And that I’d come—­if you liked—­sometimes—­as often as I could——­”

“I don’t care—­I don’t care,” he chanted.

One weed had fallen, cut in two as by a razor.  Now another.  You had to be jolly strong to break them clean off like that.  He wasn’t missing once.

“Don’t!”

“I shall.  Why shouldn’t I?  You couldn’t do it like that.”

Another.  No one to play with any more.  Never to be able to pretend again that one was just like everyone else.  People drawing away and saying to each other, “He’s not a nice little boy!”

“Please—­please, don’t, Robert!”

“Why not?  They’re only weeds—­beastly, ugly things.”

“They’ve not done you any harm.  It’s a shame to hurt them.  I like them.”

“They’re no good.  It’s practice.  I’m a soldier.  I’m cutting the enemy to pieces.”

A red rage was mounting in him.  He hardly knew that she had stood up until he saw her face gleaming at him through the mist.  She was whiter than ever, and her eyes had lost their distant look and blazed with an anger profounder, more deadly, than his own.

“You shan’t!”

“Shan’t I?”

She caught the descending stick.  He tried to tear it from her, and they fought each other almost in silence, except for the sound of their quick, painful breath.  He grew frantic, twisting and writhing.  He began to curse her as his father cursed Christine.  But her slim brown wrists were like steel.  And suddenly, looking into her eyes he saw that she wasn’t angry now.  She knew that she was stronger than he.  She was just sorry for him, for everything.