“That is all very well. But I have bungled matters dreadfully. I don’t know what your mother can think of me. I do know, though, that I wish she would let me replace the things which she has lost through my fault.”
In the sky a star was falling, swiftly, silently, like a drop of water on a windowpane. Fanny watched it. She had been lolling back in a chair. But at Annandale’s suggestion she sat up. “That is absurd,” she announced.
“Well, then, it would be only nice and fair of you to put me in a position where, without offense, I could do so.”
But Fanny was rising. “It is late,” she announced. “I must go.”
Annandale caught at her. “Say ‘Yes,’ ” he implored. “Or at least don’t say ‘No.’ Say something.”
“Something, then. There, let me be.”
At that Annandale, who still held her, held her yet tighter. “You are the dearest girl in all the world.”
Fanny gave him a little shove. “Don’t do that, anyone might see you.”
“Yes, and see too that you belong to me.”
“I am not so sure.”
“You shan’t go then till you are.” Annandale, as he spoke, planted himself uncircuitously before her.
“Oh,” said Fanny, in a little sugary, demure voice, “if you are going to use brute force—”
“I am.”
“Then I give in.”