“Well, don’t spoil your lunch,” she said.  “We’ll talk afterwards.  Are you ready for another bottle of gingerbeer?  I don’t like this gingerbeer out of glass bottles.  I like it out of stone bottles.”

“So do I,” he answered, instantly dropping his own wrongs.  “But the glass bottles have glass marbles in them, which you can use; and so it’s better to have them, because it doesn’t matter so much about the taste after it’s drunk.”

She asked him concerning his work and he told her that he best liked history.  She asked why, and he gave a curious reason.

“Because it tells you the truth, and you don’t find good men always scoring and bad men always coming to grief.  In history, good men come to grief sometimes and bad men score.”

“But you can’t always be sure what is good and what is bad,” she argued.

“The people who write the histories don’t worry you about that,” he answered, “but just tell you what happened.  And sometimes you are jolly glad when a beast gets murdered, or his throne is taken away from him; and sometimes you are sorry when a brave chap comes to grief, even though he may be bad.”

“Some historians are not fair, though,” she said.  “Some happen to feel like you.  They hate some people and some ideas, and always show them in an unfriendly light.  If you write history, you must be tremendously fair and keep your own little whims out of it.”

After their meal Estelle smoked a cigarette, much to Abel’s interest.

“I never knew a girl could smoke,” he said.

“Why not?  Would you like one?  I don’t suppose a cigarette once in a way can hurt you.”

“I’ve smoked thousands,” he told her.  “And a pipe, too, for that matter.  I smoked a cigar once.  I found it and smoked it right through.”

“Didn’t it make you ill?”

“Yes—­fearfully; but I hid till I was all right again.”

He smoked a cigarette, and Estelle told him that his father was a great smoker and very fond of a pipe.

“But he wouldn’t let you smoke, except now and again in holiday times—­not yet.  Nobody ought to smoke till he’s done growing.”

“What about you, then?” asked Abel.

“I’ve done growing ages ago.  I’m nearly twenty-eight.”

He looked at her and his eyes clouded.  He entered a phase of reserve.  Then she, guessing how to enchant him, suggested the next step.

“If you help me pack up now, we’ll harness the pony and go down to West Haven for a bit.  I want to see the old stores I’ve heard such a lot about.  You must show them to me.”

“Yes—­part.  I know every inch of them, but I can’t show you my own secret den, though.”

“Do.  I should love to see it.”

He shook his head.

“No good asking,” he said.  “That’s my greatest secret.  You can’t expect me to tell you.  Even mother doesn’t know.”

“I won’t ask, then.  I’ve got a den, too, for that matter—­in fact, two.  One on North Hill and one in our garden.”