"You've no right to be angry this time," she said. "But you are."
The young man faced her quietly and waited a moment before he spoke.
"You're playing with me," he said, calmly and without emphasis, as stating a fact.
"Of course I am!" laughed Fanny Trehearne. "What did you expect? But I'm sorry that you've found it out," she added, with appalling cynicism. "It won't be fun any more."
"Unless we both play," suggested Lawrence, who had either recovered his temper very quickly, or possessed a better control over it than Fanny had supposed.
"All right!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "Let's play--let us play. That sounds solemn, somehow--I wonder why? Oh--of course--it's like 'Let us pray' in church."
"Let us pray beforehand, for the one who gets the worst of it," he said. "He or she will need it. But I shall win at the game, you know. That's a foregone conclusion."
Fanny was surprised and amused at the confidence he suddenly affected--very unlike his habitual modesty and self-effacement.
"You seem pretty sure of yourself," she answered. "What shall the forfeit be, as they say in the children's games?"
"To marry or not to marry, at the discretion of the winner. I think that's fair, don't you? I shouldn't like to propose anything serious--the head of Roger Brinsley in a charger, for instance."
"Yes, it's all very well!" she protested. "But of course the one who loses will be in earnest, and the one who wins will not."
"He may be, by that time," suggested Lawrence.
"Don't say 'he,' so confidently--I mean to win. Besides, are we starting fair? Of course I don't care an atom for you, but don't you care for me--just a little?"
"I!" exclaimed Lawrence. "What an idea!" He laughed quite as naturally as Fanny herself. "Do you think that a man in love would propose such a game as we are talking about?" he asked.
"I'm sure I don't know what to think," answered the young girl. "Perhaps I shall know in a day or two."
She looked down, quite grave again, and pulled a bit of fern from the bank, and crushed it in her hand, and then smelled it.
"Don't you like sweet fern?" she asked, holding it out to him. "I love it!"
"That's why you crush it, I suppose," said Lawrence.
"It doesn't smell sweet unless you do. Oh--I see! You were beginning to play the game. Very well. Why should we lose time about it? But I wish it were a little better defined. What is it we're going to do? Won't you explain? I'm so stupid about these things. Are we going to flirt for a bet?"