“That one night?” I couldn’t look as straight as he.

“Why, when I went down⁠—went out of the house.”

“Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for.”

“You forget?”⁠—he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childish reproach. “Why, it was to show you I could!”

“Oh, yes, you could.”

“And I can again.”

I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my wits about me. “Certainly. But you won’t.”

“No, not that again. It was nothing.”

“It was nothing,” I said. “But we must go on.”