"Don't you think it is inconsiderate to our host, and the others?" he asked. "They're sure to notice it!"

Silence.

"I didn't mean to offend you;--I was just bowled over, that's the simple truth!"

He might have been talking to an empty room.

"You've been so much like a sister to me," he ventured again, "that I didn't stop to think; and only--only acted on the very same impulse I would if you actually were my sister!" (Oh, Brent, you unconscionable liar!)

Still there was silence.

"Let's count," he suggested. "It won't be talking, and, at least, will deceive the table."

Silence.

"We might say the Lord's Prayer! That's certainly proper, and you can leave out 'as we forgive others.'"

In spite of herself the faintest shadow of a smile touched her lips, but their silence was absolute.

"Or we might try Mother Goose," again came the pleading voice. "We needn't speak after tonight--rather after this dinner. We can't, in fact, if I'm going home tomorrow! Shouldn't we make some effort to keep from spoiling the others' good time?"

Going home tomorrow? She had not heard of that! What would become of the railroad? What would become--but nothing mattered except the railroad!

Was he acute enough to reason that he could move her by this threat, she wondered? And if he were, and if she yielded, would he not use it as a weapon for future forgivenesses, when he might again be taking her for his sister--something which he did not possess? This idea sealed her determination. Yet, on second thought she relented--oh, it could scarcely be called relenting--just a wee bit and, still looking steadfastly down at her plate, in a monotonous voice, said:

"Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard."

"Fine!" he laughed, but she quietly interrupted him:

"Nothing but Mother Goose--and, after this evening, nothing, ever!"

He drew a wry face, murmuring:

"Little Jack Sprite is very contrite, and wants to make up with his lady!"

She puzzled a moment over Little Jack Sprite. It did not seem quite relevant to the nursery cla.s.sic which, only a few years back, she had read many times to Bip.

"That isn't Mother Goose," she finally stated. "I shan't do this any more."

"But it is," he protested, "and I'll show it to you in the book! They were reading Mother Goose to me long after you lost interest in it."

There was no rise to this, and he cautiously added:

"My poor brain, while ages older, has never developed up to yours. Do you know any rhymes, at all?"

Silence.

She looked again at Dale and found him listening to Ann. Again the Colonel proved unpromising. One slight remark was entirely lost on someone else, and Miss Liz offered more remote possibilities than before. After the situation recommenced its torture, rather wearily she said to her plate:

"Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon."

"I love that one," he whispered, and, taking up her meter, continued: "The little dog howled, and the pretty girl scowled, but promised to make up soon! That's the second verse."

Another silence, but not so prolonged, when her voice reached him:

"Brent, Brent, the rich man's son, broke his word and away he run!"

"Heart," he corrected. "'Broke his heart,' is the way that goes!"

The silence was desperate now, and, after he had exhausted many forms of pleading, she simply said:

"Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town!"

"I don't think it's nice to be so personal in our Mother Goose party,"

he reproved her. "However, if you insist--"

"But I don't insist!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I was just going to repeat: 'There was a little boy and a little girl lived in an alley.' Will you finish it out?"

"I don't remember it," she said, too hurriedly to be convincing. "I'll say this one: 'Birds of a feather flock together, and so will pigs and swine; rats and mice will have their choice, and so will I have mine.'"

"You have a choice collection, at any rate," he grinned.

"Some verses," she explained, "were added to the very recent editions used in my childhood."

His grin became broader. "I hoped you might come across on that before the evening was over. Has your very recent edition the one in it about: 'Jane was saucy, Jane was pert'?"

"You're a bit shocking tonight," she said, turning to the Colonel, whose attention was still on Nancy.

Brent waited a minute, then: "Maybe you don't remember this one in your very recent edition: 'A hard-hearted Queen from Flat Rock, Whose anger came as a great shock, Said: I will not speak, sir, To you for a week, sir, So he went out and--' but I haven't had time to make the last line fit. You ought to laugh now!"

"I wish I could."

"It's original!"

"So I judge."

"Is that open window too cool for you?"

Silence.

"Here's another out of your very recent edition," he began, when she desperately turned to him.

"I wish you'd play fair!"

"Have you played fair?" he asked.

"I might have expected an evasion from you!"