"I am much too young."

"Too young! Too young!"

There was all at once something in his voice and manner which gave me quite a start. I s.n.a.t.c.hed my hand away and jumped down to the ground.

"We can't stop here all day if we mean to do any skating, and I for one certainly do."

I marched off at about five miles an hour. He wore an air of meekness which was so little in keeping with his general character that, at the bottom of my heart, it rather appalled me.

"I would sooner be snubbed by you than flattered by another woman."

"Snubbed by me! Considering how you're always snubbing me, that's amusing."

"I never mean to snub you."

"You never mean to? Then you must be singularly unfortunate in having to so constantly act in direct opposition to your intentions. To begin with, you hardly ever treat me as if I were a woman at all."

"Well, you are not a woman--are you--quite?"

"Mr Sanford! When you talk like that I feel--! Pray what sort of remark do you call that?"

"You are standing at the stepping stones."

"At the stepping-stones?"

"Happy is the man who is to lead you across them."

"I don't in the least understand you. And I would have you to know that I feel that it is high time that I should put childish things behind me; and I should like other people to recognise that I have done so."

"Childish things? What are childish things? Oh, Molly, I wish that you could always be a child. And the pity is that one of these days you'll be wishing it too."

"I'm sure I sha'n't. It's horrid to be a child."

"Is it?"

"You are always being snubbed."

"Are you?"

"No one treats you with the least respect; or imagines that you can possibly ever be in earnest. As for opinions of your own--it's considered an absurdity that you should ever have them. Look at you!

You're laughing at me at this very moment."

"Don't you know why I am laughing at you, Molly?"

Again there was something in the way in which he asked the question which gave me the oddest feeling. As if I was half afraid. Ever since we had left the stile I had been conscious of the most ridiculous sense of nervousness. A thing with which, as a rule, I am never troubled. I was suddenly filled with a wild desire to divert the conversation from ourselves, no matter how. So I made a desperate plunge.

"Have you seen anything of Hetty lately?"

He was still for a moment, as if the sudden reference to his cousin occasioned him surprise; and that not altogether of a pleasant kind.

Though I did not see why it should have done.

"I was not speaking of Hetty. Nor am I anxious to, just now."

"Aren't you? Have you quarrelled with her, as well?"

"As well? Why do you say as well?"

"Oh, I don't know. You're always quarrelling."

"That's not true."

"Thank you. Is that a snub? Or merely a compliment?"

"Molly, why will you treat me like this? It's you who treat me like a child, not I you."

"There's the lake at last, thank goodness!"

I did not care if it was rude or not. I was delighted to see it, so I said so plainly. What is more, I tore off towards it as hard as I could. My rush was so unexpected that I was clean away before he knew it. All the same he reached the lake as soon as I did. He could run, just as he could do everything else. The ice looked splendid, smooth as a sheet of gla.s.s. All about were the pines with their frosted branches. They seemed to stand in rows, so that they looked like the pillars in the aisles of some great cathedral. And then pine-trees always are so solemn and so still.

"Give me my skates, please. I want to get them on at once. Doesn't the ice look too lovely for anything?

"It's not a question of what it looks like, but of what it will bear."

He stepped on to the edge. It gave an ominous crack. I daresay, if he had waited, long enough, it would have given way beneath him. But he did not. He hopped back on to the solid ground. "You see!"

"Excuse me, but that is exactly what I do not do. Here it is under the shadow of the trees. Besides, the water is so shallow that it is practically cat's ice. I'm sure it's all right a little further round and in the middle. It's often cracky near the edge."

"I am sure it is not safe anywhere."

"Will you please give me my skates, Mr Sanford?"

He looked at me. So as to let him see that I had no intention of being cowed, I looked back at him.

"I hope that, this once, you will be advised. I a.s.sure you it is unsafe."

"Please give me my skates."

He laughed, in that queer way he had of laughing at unexpected moments, when there certainly seemed nothing to laugh at.

"Good. Then it is decided. We will both go skating."

"Both? It is not necessary that we should do anything of the kind. I wish you would let me do as I like, without criticism. Who appointed you to have authority over me? Who suggested that because I choose to do a thing you should do it too? I prefer not to have you attached to my ap.r.o.n-strings. Give me my skates. You can go home. I would rather you did."

"If you skate, I skate also."

"As you please, if you can get over your timidity. There is room on the lake for two. If you will choose one end I will have the other."

"I shall skate where you do."