Freddie looked at the girl, and the girl looked at him. I looked at the ground, and the kid looked at the toffee.
“Kiss Fweddie!” he yelled. “Kiss Fweddie!”
“What does this mean?” said the girl, turning on me.
“You’d better give it him,” I said. “He’ll go on till you do, you know.”
She gave the kid the toffee and he subsided. Freddie, poor ass, still stood there gaping, without a word.
“What does it mean?” said the girl again. Her face was pink, and her eyes were sparkling in the sort of way, don’t you know, that makes a fellow feel as if he hadn’t any bones in him, if you know what I mean. Yes, Bertram felt filleted. Did you ever tread on your partner’s dress at a dance—I’m speaking now of the days when women wore dresses long enough to be trodden on—and hear it rip and see her smile at you like an angel and say, “ Please don’t apologise. It’s nothing,” and then suddenly meet her clear blue eyes and feel as if you had stepped on the teeth of a rake and had the handle jump up and hit you in the face? Well, that’s how Freddie’s Elizabeth looked.
“ Well? ” she said, and her teeth gave a little click.
I gulped. Then I said it was nothing. Then I said it was nothing much. Then I said, “Oh, well, it was this way.” And I told her all about it. And all the while Idiot Freddie stood there gaping, without a word. Not one solitary yip had he let out of himself from the start.
And the girl didn’t speak, either. She just stood listening.
And then she began to laugh. I never heard a girl laugh so much. She leaned against the side of the veranda and shrieked. And all the while Freddie, the World’s Champion Dumb Brick, standing there, saying nothing.