“So have I,” said Clarence, with a faint accession of color.  “Let’s go!” She had relinquished his hand to smooth out her frock, and they were walking side by side at a more moderate pace.  “But,” he continued, clinging to his first idea with masculine persistence, and anxious to assure his companion of his power, of his position, “I’m in the college, and Father Sobriente, who knows your lady superior, is a good friend of mine and gives me privileges; and—­and—­when he knows that you and I used to play together—­why, he’ll fix it that we may see each other whenever we want.”

“Oh, you silly!” said Susy.  “What!—­when you’re—­”

“When I’m what?”

The young girl shot a violet blue ray from under her broad hat.  “Why—­when we’re grown up now?” Then with a certain precision, “Why, they’re very particular about young gentlemen!  Why, Clarence, if they suspected that you and I were—­” Another violet ray from under the hat completed this unfinished sentence.

Pleased and yet confused, Clarence looked straight ahead with deepening color.  “Why,” continued Susy, “Mary Rogers, that was walking with me, thought you were ever so old—­and a distinguished Spaniard!  And I,” she said abruptly—­“haven’t I grown?  Tell me, Clarence,” with her old appealing impatience, “haven’t I grown?  Do tell me!”

“Very much,” said Clarence.

“And isn’t this frock pretty—­it’s only my second best—­but I’ve a prettier one with lace all down in front; but isn’t this one pretty, Clarence, tell me?”

Clarence thought the frock and its fair owner perfection, and said so.  Whereat Susy, as if suddenly aware of the presence of passers-by, assumed an air of severe propriety, dropped her hands by her side, and with an affected conscientiousness walked on, a little further from Clarence’s side, until they reached the ice-cream saloon.

“Get a table near the back, Clarence,” she said, in a confidential whisper, “where they can’t see us—­and strawberry, you know, for the lemon and vanilla here are just horrid!”

They took their seats in a kind of rustic arbor in the rear of the shop, which gave them the appearance of two youthful but somewhat over-dressed and over-conscious shepherds.  There was an interval of slight awkwardness, which Susy endeavored to displace.  “There has been,” she remarked, with easy conversational lightness, “quite an excitement about our French teacher being changed.  The girls in our class think it most disgraceful.”

And this was all she could say after a separation of four years!  Clarence was desperate, but as yet idealess and voiceless.  At last, with an effort over his spoon, he gasped a floating recollection:  “Do you still like flapjacks, Susy?”

“Oh, yes,” with a laugh, “but we don’t have them now.”

“And Mose” (a black pointer, who used to yelp when Susy sang), “does he still sing with you?”