"
"You belong to me," said Dick, "for ever and ever."
"Yes, we belong--for ever. It's very nice." She squeezed his arm. The kindly
darkness hid them both, and, emboldened because he could only just see the
profile of Maisie's cheek with the long lashes veiling the gray eyes, Dick at
the front door delivered himself of the words he had been boggling over for the
last two hours.
"And I--love you, Maisie," he said, in a whisper that seemed to him to ring
across the world,--the world that he would tomorrow or the next day set out to
conquer.
There was a scene, not, for the sake of discipline, to be reported, when Mrs.
Jennett would have fallen upon him, first for disgraceful unpunctuality, and
secondly for nearly killing himself with a forbidden weapon.
"I was playing with it, and it went off by itself," said Dick, when the powder-
pocked cheek could no longer be hidden, "but if you think you're going to lick
me you're wrong. You are never going to touch me again. Sit down and give me my
tea. You can't cheat us out of that, anyhow."
Mrs. Jennett gasped and became livid. Maisie said nothing, but encouraged Dick
with her eyes, and he behaved abominably all that evening. Mrs. Jennett
prophesied an immediate judgment of Providence and a descent into Tophet later,
but Dick walked in Paradise and would not hear.
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